A raindrop for pompomshoes! (2/4)

[stormies]

Part II: Manifested World

Time, Sho realizes, flows differently in the Plain of High Heaven.

By his recollection, he was mortal only a few weeks ago. He’s been referring to himself as recently deceased for that reason.

But when they finally reach the Manifested World and have begun assimilating to the faux mortal lives they are about to live—complete with the glamor and all—he finds out that he’s been dead for some time.

Years. It’s been years, he discovers, when he attempts to look up the records of Sakurai Sho via the internet, and when he tries to unravel more of the loose thread of that old life, Matsumoto stops him with a decisive act of closing the laptop shut.

“You’re not that Sakurai Sho anymore,” Matsumoto tells him simply. He isn’t admonishing with that tone, but Sho knows he’s being stopped for a reason.

Sho looks around at the apartment they have—it’s all part of the glamor, it seems, that they’re the recently arrived tenants in this apartment complex. They’ve already met the landlord and their neighbors a while back, and they’ve all been welcoming and friendly enough that for a moment, Sho almost believed that this just another phase of his life and he’s mortal once more.

But he isn’t. He’s just been staring at the public record of him dying due to a freak accident, and he’s not here because of a second chance. He’s here for something else.

“Are you saying that because you want to prevent me from transgressing against the High Heaven’s laws?” Sho asks.

“No,” Matsumoto says. Despite the loss of his elaborate garb now that he’s in mortal disguise, his handsomeness is still striking to the eye. “I know you won’t transgress. But whatever old life you had here is something the people you once knew will no longer remember as long as you’re here.” He looks away for a brief moment, letting out a breath. “It’s the glamor. They won’t remember you even if you try to find them, even if you introduce yourself to them once more. To them, you’re simply another Sakurai Sho.”

Sho looks at the laptop and the life he now has, this fully furnished place he has to live in for as long as this mission lasts. He looks at the man in front of him, dressed so plainly it’s hard to think of him as a god among men, and finds himself appreciating how there’s someone looking out for him this early on.

In his stay in the Plain of High Heaven, there was no one who did that. Fuma only took care of his affairs and had them in order, but he didn’t dare stand up against Sho over anything.

And now, despite the oddness of the situation they’re in, Sho finds himself grateful that it is Matsumoto Jun who accompanied him down here.

“If you follow the threads of your old life, you will forget yourself,” Matsumoto tells him patiently, eyes avoiding Sho’s. “We may be gods, but we were once men. Divinity is the only thing that separates us from men, and we just did away with it a while back. You cannot lose yourself. That’s what they want.”

The reminder looms over Sho’s very being. He’s being hunted right now and whoever is doing so won’t stop until he disappears from existence.

He curls one of his hands to a fist and nods. “I understand.”

“Good,” Matsumoto says after a moment. He turns his back to Sho then, and Sho receives a generous view of the expanse of his back, the juts of his shoulder blades against stretched fabric.

The shirt, Sho realizes now, is a size too small for him.

“Help me unpack,” Matsumoto says, and Sho’s focus snaps back on him at once.

Sho moves, opening boxes and shaking his head at the contents. “This is all just part of the glamor, isn’t it? Can’t you simply will it so that every item will find its place?”

Matsumoto is tending to his own set of boxes and not looking at him when he answers, “I can.” But before Sho can open his mouth to ask him to, he adds, “But the neighbors will talk if we manage to complete the task too quickly. We’re already the talk in this floor, in case you haven’t noticed. In a few days, the entire apartment complex will know.”

Sho did notice that: the lingering stares, the fleeting smiles, and the fading whispers. Upon their arrival, it was hard to miss. The building has a lot of tenants, and most of them are middle-aged housewives. The type that have their own LINE group chats and share stories with one another daily.

He can understand the talk—Matsumoto Jun didn’t lose a shred of attractiveness when he temporarily shed off his divinity, and with him creating the glamor of a successful financial analyst for himself, it’s definitely something that will pique the neighborhood’s curiosity.

What he can’t quite put his mind to is his place in it. Surely there have been other couples before them. He hardly thinks it’s worth all the attention they’re getting so far, but then again, they just moved in.

Then he remembers something.

“What did you and Nino register our name as?” he asks. He supposes he can simply look at the plaque right outside their door, but he wants to know what to expect should he head outside and inspect it for himself.

Matsumoto pointedly shifts his attention to the box he’s digging through the contents of. “Matsumoto,” he says after a terse moment.

Sho gawks. That would explain the staring he’s been the recipient of—everyone must have been thinking...that things between them...

He breathes through his nostrils, trying to do away with the indignation he now feels. “I don’t even get a say in it? Why can’t you be a Sakurai? My surname’s just fine!”

“Two reasons,” Matsumoto says as he casts a furtive glance in Sho’s direction. “Assuming Nino’s theory regarding a spy in the Plain of High Heaven is true, the former marriage deity knows who you are and is looking for a Sakurai Sho. They must have sensed our presence here in the Manifested World already; we may have shed the divinity to fool mortals, but they’re not mortal.”

Sho has to admit that that is a valid reason.

“And the other?” he asks, arms now crossed over his chest.

“If you’re going to rely on my spiritual energy for this entire venture, you might as well be using my name,” Matsumoto points out, too coolly for Sho’s liking that he wonders if it’s been rehearsed prior to this.

Unfortunately for Matsumoto Jun, the flushing at the tip of his ears gives him away, and Sho knows he’s similarly embarrassed about the entire situation. Sho gives himself a few moments to digest everything that’s going on and tries his best to remember that he’s not the only one currently trapped in a fake marriage.

Matsumoto is trapped in one, too, and Sho probably has it better considering how attractive his new albeit faux spouse is. With nothing to offer on the table, Sho supposes that of the two of them, Matsumoto got the short end of the stick.

Considering that Sho will also rely on Matsumoto’s influence and even on his shrines’ offerings, he supposes it does make sense. Unless his own influence grows, then he can perhaps impose.

But until then, he has no choice but to be a Matsumoto, and Sakurai Sho is either a long-dead man or a fledgling deity of very little powers and influence.

Sho faces Matsumoto and lowers his head, avoiding the man’s surprised gaze. If he’s pouting, he hopes Matsumoto doesn’t comment on it.

“Please keep me in your favor then,” he says, conceding.

--

Married life is something Sho never experienced when he was still alive.

To make himself less confused about the entire situation he’s now in, he’s taken into referring to his previous life as the time he was still alive, and this new, faux life he’s having is simply...the mission.

The urgency of the situation is not as palpable as it had been in the Plain of High Heaven, and Sho doesn’t know if it’s something to be thankful for or be wary of. Because lately, nothing is happening. He’s living a life that by mortal standards, is perfectly normal and peaceful. The glamor is so elaborately constructed that their unsuspecting neighbors see nothing amiss.

They divide the errands between them, taking turns at doing the laundry and getting groceries. He learns of Matsumoto Jun’s favorites and his quirks, his meticulousness at keeping the slippers in the genkan orderly, his preference for room temperature and expensive water, and his aversion to cooler climates.

Matsumoto’s independence in the Plain of High Heaven doesn’t transmit now that they’re down here in the Mortal Realm and living together, Sho thinks. While the man is more than capable of doing things on his own, he has certain moments in which confusion simply takes over and he’s at a loss on what to do.

Once, when Sho still had no prior knowledge of Matsumoto’s sensitivity to extremes of temperature, he found the man shivering and grumbling about today’s air conditioning units being too technologically advanced for his liking as he fiddled with the settings.

Sho had to take the remote from him and fix the settings himself, ignoring the fact that their fingers brushed the moment he stepped in and took over.

It left him wondering what exactly was the kind of life someone like Matsumoto Jun had prior to being granted divinity and becoming the Deity of Fertility. If he’s complaining about recent developments in air conditioning units and even the washing machine that has the ability to dry and iron out clothes on its own, then perhaps...he’s been dead for some time?

Sho wants to know, but he also doesn’t want to pry. When Matsumoto stopped him from following the threads of his old life, he’s aware of the unspoken agreement between them that it also extends to Matsumoto’s record. Sure, there are a lot of Matsumoto Juns in the Manifested World and digging some information will take time, but Sho thinks that if he wants to, instead of prying into what might be sensitive information, he might as well just ask.

The opportunity to do so doesn’t come until they’ve assimilated to their surroundings well enough that Sho knows the names of his neighbors and their kids.

In the mornings, Matsumoto sets out. It’s him who communicates with his attendants, visiting his temples, and updating the Plain of High Heaven on the situation. Sho’s lack of spiritual energy makes him unable to do such things—at most, all he can do is privately set up a communication array with Fuma, and it has never lasted more than five minutes without him feeling incredibly drained.

So he mostly remains at home. It’s clear to everyone in the apartment complex by now that between the two of them, Sho is the househusband.

They’ve been in the Manifested World for weeks now, perhaps a month, when Sho begins to feel something different indicating an urgent need that he honestly forgot about thanks to the tranquility he’s experiencing as his everyday life.

He needs a transfer.

At first he can ignore it. The lack of spiritual energy is hardly something he feels now that he’s no longer in the Plain of High Heaven. But his complacency may have made it worse: he now feels tiny pinpricks originating from his nape and spreading down his arms, making his fingers twitch. When he finally drops a ceramic mug, causing it to shatter, he finally accepts the truth.

Matsumoto has heard the noise—he has returned from his recent venture around the neighborhood. Of the two of them, Sho thinks the man is adjusting better than him and has assimilated into his new role as the neighborhood favorite rather well.

But then again, Matsumoto is not the one gradually withering away while having a target on his back.

“I’ll clean it up,” Sho tells him when Matsumoto appears in the threshold separating the kitchen from the living room. “It slipped from my fingers.”

There must be something in Sho’s face because Matsumoto approaches, taking a good look at him before grabbing one of his wrists, thumb pressing on his pulse.

Then, Matsumoto sighs. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed it?”

“I—” Sho tries, but the vertigo is beginning to set in and is quickly turning his brain to fog, “I didn’t recognize the symptoms, I guess. It...feels different this time.”

Sho was expecting Matsumoto to put a finger on his forehead and alleviate the dizziness that threatens his consciousness in the same way Nino did, but Matsumoto moves behind him, leaving him bracing himself on the kitchen counter for balance.

Then he feels the man’s palms on his back, resting right over his shoulder blades as the sudden rush of spiritual energy fills him, the darkness surrounding his vision dissipating as quickly as it came.

“You said it feels different,” Matsumoto says behind him. Sho already feels better, but the transfer is yet to be completed. “How different? I must inform Ryoko-san about this; she did warn me you might last longer than expected, and that I must be vigilant in case you do.” Sho hears his tongue click in annoyance. “I didn’t notice. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Sho tells him, unable to keep himself from smiling. “I’m feeling better already. And I think this time I only realized something’s wrong because I felt...tingly? If that makes sense. In the High Heaven I felt like I was dying, so it is very different this time around.”

“Perhaps it’s because you shed your divinity that it doesn’t manifest as intensely as before?” Matsumoto asks, though Sho assumes he’s talking to himself. The man does that—Sho may have caught him speaking to the television or to the washing machine once or twice.

Sho thinks it’s endearing, the urgency of their current situation slipping from his mind.

“I have to tell Ryoko-san about this,” Matsumoto informs him. “She’s the only one who can tell us if we should worry or not.”

Sho feels the hands fall away, and he nods in thanks.

“Thank you, but won’t she give you a scolding or two if you tell her?” Sho asks, a little worried. Yonekura can be terrifying, something even Ohno himself acknowledges. “I don’t want you to get into trouble just because I downplayed what I was feeling and didn’t know any better.”

“She might get angry,” Matsumoto acknowledges, his eyes on the broken pieces littering the kitchen floor. “But I am at fault here, so I might as well tell her myself.” Matsumoto enters his line of vision once more, peering at him. “Tell me how you feel.”

Sho blinks in assessment, opening and closing one of his palms. The numbness is gone and his vision is clear, and he no longer feels as if his legs couldn’t support his weight.

“Better,” he says, smiling when he earns a quirked eyebrow from Matsumoto. He’s getting used to getting those; the appearance of which used to intimidate him, but now, it only amuses him. “Really. The queasiness is gone. I feel fine.” He glances at the broken ceramic on the floor. “I’ll clean that up.”

“The next time you feel something different, tell me right away,” Matsumoto says, stepping aside to let Sho gather the pieces. “Has it happened before while I was away?”

Sho considers the question and thinks back as he deposits the broken pieces in the trash. “They might have,” he says honestly, apologetically.

Matsumoto is frowning now, so he hastily adds, “But I didn’t know what they meant at the time so I just brushed it off! And the symptoms did go away after a while that by the time you came back, I didn’t even remember feeling them.”

Matsumoto’s eyes narrow at him. “They went away after a while?”

Sho nods. “The tingling often starts from my nape, you see. Not enough to cause discomfort, but enough for me to notice. But by the time I do notice, it disappears. It’s been like that for days. This was the first time it didn’t go away, though, that I finally realized what it was.”

Matsumoto spreads his palm without a word, and Sho sees a burst of spiritual energy swathed in purple wisps appear from his hand. In their stay here, he’s never used his abilities in such a direct manner before, keeping it discreet.

Sho blinks, acknowledging that the situation earlier might be more urgent than his assessment.

“Yonekura,” is all Matsumoto says, and the condensed energy sizzles before the wisps turn green—the exact shade of Yonekura’s flowing robes.

Sho feels the air go still, and suddenly, he can no longer hear the hum of the air conditioning or any noise emitted by the rest of the outside world.

The wisps grow in numbers now and begin enveloping them both, and Sho’s entire surroundings suddenly become bathed in emerald green light.

He’s never seen a communication array work like this. The one he’s established with Fuma feels small in comparison, and he’s only successfully done it whenever he goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth. The most he felt at the time was the nagging feeling at the back of his skull that someone was listening, and that was it.

“If you’re bypassing your attendants and directing this to my own array, then this must be urgent,” comes Yonekura’s voice, echoing around them. Sho feels her presence, like she’s here with them, and his knees tremble—assuming a mortal form has made him more susceptible to the supernatural, and the stillness in the air is the kind that would make any mortal cower.

He straightens and keeps his gaze ahead. He’s no mere mortal.

“I had to,” Matsumoto says. “My apologies if I took you from anything important.”

“Speak, then,” Yonekura tells him. “Is Sakurai in danger? Must I descend as well?”

“Nothing that urgent,” Matsumoto answers. He glances once in Sho’s direction. “But I had to transfer energy to him today. By mortal standards, it’s been almost a month since our descent. He has fared longer than your expectations, but the symptoms this time have varied that I failed to watch out for them despite your reminder that I must be vigilant.”

Sho can only stare—he didn’t expect Matsumoto to be that forthright.

But he supposes anyone would be when facing someone like Yonekura.

“Your failure, Matsumoto-kun, could’ve sent me down there,” Yonekura says with a firm tone. “Is he there?”

At Matsumoto’s nod, Sho answers. “I’m here.”

“Tell me how you felt this time,” Yonekura prompts, and Sho does.

He explains it in the same manner as he did earlier. “It came and went for days so I didn’t think much of it. It’s only today that my vision began blacking out and the dizziness felt like it did when I was up there. It was only then that I realized what was happening.”

Yonekura is silent for a brief moment.

Then: “You said he lasted longer than my expectations, Matsumoto-kun.”

“I did,” Matsumoto replies. “You gave him a week up there. He lasted more than that. What we don’t know is how that happened. If his energy is depleted but the seal remains intact, he should’ve needed the transfer weeks ago here and not just now.”

“And is it?” Yonekura asks. “The seal—is it intact? When you transferred your energy to him, did you check?”

“I have,” Matsumoto informs her, “in the way you taught me how. And it is intact. Your seal hasn’t faded nor lost its potency. We might have to thank your omamori for that. His energy levels, however, were at an alarming rate by the time I initiated the transfer. It’s what makes me wonder. He shouldn’t have lasted this long if the levels were that low.”

“Unless,” Yonekura begins, and to Sho’s surprise, she lets out a laugh, abruptly breaking the tension.

Sho and Matsumoto share a confused look.

“You might have to ask his attendant to confirm,” Yonekura tells them when she gets over her sudden amusement, “but there can only be one reason why he’s faring better than expected. I’m hardly ever wrong, but perhaps this new deity likes challenging the odds so much.”

Sho can’t tell if he’s being complimented or not.

“One reason?” Matsumoto prompts, and they hear Yonekura hum.

“Someone—or rather, a couple of them down there,” Yonekura says, “are praying to him.”

The look Matsumoto gives him is serious and contemplative, and Sho turns to the direction of Yonekura’s voice. “I haven’t heard a single prayer since I got here.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Yonekura says, “since you shed your divinity when you crossed the torii. But their belief in you has sustained you and thus aided your glamor that it ended up making your mortal form more resistant to the effects of withering away. This is merely what I think, but perhaps...with your descent, you’ve started to influence those around you?”

Sho stills then, thinking. The greetings, the warm reception he and Matsumoto received, the smiles and the glances thrown their way, the casual gifts of food they received from the neighbors, and the invitations for meals.

Did they look so happily married that it made the people around them wish for the same?

“Isn’t that attributable to the glamor?” he asks, uncertain. “I have very little influence; I don’t think it’s me.”

Before Yonekura can reply, however, Matsumoto clears his throat.

“Ryoko-san, if it is as you say and they are beginning to pray to him, then surely, the one we’re looking for knows this as well,” Matsumoto says. “If one of his temples here is desecrated, what effect do you think it will have on him now?”

Sho can only look at Matsumoto, at how the man zones in on the most important questions and asks them right away to be less time-consuming. He’s nothing but thorough, and Sho has to admit, the idea of being married to someone like that is making him feel...things.

If there’s one thing he thinks is attractive, it’s competence.

And he’s seeing it right now.

Yonekura lets out a contemplative hum before replying. “Without his divinity, I cannot tell for sure. This mortal guise turns out to be more protective than any of the measures we’ve taken so far. A desecration is an attack on his divinity, and if he doesn’t feel it, then his attendant must inform you at once since it will manifest in his pavilion here.”

“So it’s an emergency if he doesn’t feel anything,” Matsumoto clarifies.

“It is,” Yonekura tells them, her voice serious. “Because if they’re attacking his divinity, then it means they don’t want him to return to the Plain of High Heaven.”

Sho suddenly feels cold at the realization, dread settling at the pit of his gut and twisting until he is unable to keep himself from wincing.

“After all, it’s easier for a god to kill someone who’s mortal,” Yonekura says with finality.

For a moment, neither he nor Matsumoto say a word, the stillness and the heaviness of the truth hanging between them.

“Thank you, Ryoko-san,” Matsumoto says after the silence has stretched past its limits. “My apologies again if I disturbed you. Any subsequent communications of little urgency will be through my attendants.”

“I appreciate that,” Yonekura tells them, “but if something like this happens again, you have my leave to direct it to my array. Until then.”

“Until then,” they both echo, and the green light fades away just as the ball of energy on Matsumoto’s palm fades into nothingness.

Around them, the rest of the world resumes its course—the sensations flooding Sho’s senses at once. The stillness from earlier is gone, replaced by sounds that have now become familiar. Outside, he faintly hears the elevator reach their particular floor.

“You were wrong,” Matsumoto says suddenly, and when Sho turns to him, the man is not meeting his eyes. His gaze is focused on a particular spot on the wall. “Earlier, I mean.”

“Wrong,” Sho repeats, earning a nod from Matsumoto. “About what?”

“It’s not the glamor,” Matsumoto tells him, still not looking at him. “Why they’re all praying to you since our descent, why your symptoms aren’t as bad as we expected, and why you’ve lasted this long without an energy transfer despite your levels being depleted—it’s not the glamor.” He shakes his head. “It can’t be. No glamor is as strong as that. It can influence the perception of mortals, but it can never drive them to do something that requires them to exercise their free will.”

It’s free will when they pray. No trick of the mind can make them pray unless they want to.

“Then what do you think caused it?” Sho asks. “You said I’m wrong, but you didn’t give Yonekura-san the chance to answer that when I asked her.”

“Because I already know she won’t know the answer,” Matsumoto says confidently, despite his gaze being pointedly fixed at something else, at anything that isn’t Sho.

“And you do,” Sho says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Well?”

Matsumoto lets out a breath, laced with thinly veiled amusement as he shuts his eyes, his long eyelashes now fanning his cheeks. “It’s never the glamor, Sakurai Sho. It’s you.”

Sho can only stare back as Matsumoto Jun faces him, his expression soft, the traces of his earlier amusement still evident in his eyes.

“It’s just you,” Matsumoto tells him. At Sho’s confusion, he smiles, a small curling of his lips that makes the marks around his mouth more striking to the eye. “You blessed me.”

Sho looks around them and the realization hits him.

They haven’t fought over a single thing. Granted, it hasn’t been long by mortal standards, but Matsumoto is still somewhat of a stranger to him despite them sharing living quarters at present. And yet, they haven’t disagreed, and any problem they might have had, they easily found solutions for.

He blessed Matsumoto Jun, and in turn, blessed his marriage to the man that whatever the mortals see in them is causing them to wish for the same.

And if Aiba’s blessing is also at work here—Sho is beginning to think that it is—then that would explain why Matsumoto happened to be here by the time his energy levels were at their limits.

“Oh,” is all he can say, unable to think of anything else. He didn’t know this was possible.

“Perhaps there is more to you than just being a newly appointed god,” Matsumoto says eventually, turning away from him and opening the fridge. “Your blessing led to people believing in you once more, and if that isn’t a slap to the face of the one hunting you down, I don’t know what it is. Especially since you bestowed your blessing right when you were supposedly at your weakest.”

“But they can kill me, right?” Sho asks, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Yonekura said it earlier: if I turn mortal enough, they can easily do away with me.”

“You won’t turn mortal enough,” Matsumoto tells him with confidence as he shuts the fridge, a tray of eggs in his hand. Sho is still getting used to seeing a golden band around one of his fingers, the twin of which is a little added weight around his own. “It’s just a figure of speech. Sufficiently depleted of spiritual energy will make you weak enough, rendering you mortal-like. But you can never go back to being one.”

“Don’t you miss it?” Sho asks suddenly, and at the questioning look he receives from Matsumoto, he shrugs. “Being mortal, I mean. Not being a part of all this. If I knew that this is what dying would bring me, I would’ve skipped that particular work day.”

He laughs despite not anything being particularly funny.

“How did you die?” is the question he receives, and is one he doesn’t expect.

Sho tells him about the freak accident, or at least, what he remembers of it. “The last thing I saw before the pain hit were blinding lights. Then I found myself there, and now here we are.” He waits for a moment to pass before he asks what’s been bugging him for a while. “Do you remember how yours went?”

“Vividly,” is Matsumoto’s answer, the word punctuated with the sound of him opening the tray on top of the kitchen counter. Standing side by side like this, Sho can see the marks littering the man’s neck.

Briefly, he wonders where else Matsumoto might have those, and catches himself.

He looks away. “I don’t suppose it’s as bad as a freak accident involving a train?”

“I was on my way to a new job after leaving a previous one,” Matsumoto answers eventually, when he has a stove going and a frying pan heating over it. He’s an excellent cook, and frankly, Sho will never say no to anything he makes. “There were no trains involved. It was something unremarkable in hindsight, really.”

Sho waits, keeping his eyes on the frying pan instead. He has to wait until Matsumoto is almost finished with his first tamagoyaki before the man speaks again.

“Speeding car,” he says finally, a soft smile playing on his lips as he flips the egg with a gracefulness Sho knows he himself can never execute. “If it didn’t hit me, it would’ve hit the little schoolgirl walking next to me. So I’m not that bitter about it.”

For the next few moments, they’re both quiet, and Sho hears nothing but the sizzle of cooking oil.

Then, he asks. “Did the girl make it?”

“Unscathed,” Matsumoto affirms.

“Oh,” Sho says. “That’s a relief.” Then he catches himself, reddening. “I mean, it’s not a relief that you died, of course, but for a moment there I was worried about the little girl, so—”

Matsumoto’s laugh cuts off his rambling, and Sho sighs.

“So you didn’t get to experience the new job?” Sho asks this time.

“No,” Matsumoto says, still with a smile. He’s on the second tamagoyaki now, something he finishes quicker than the previous. “A shame, really. My senpai wrote a glowing recommendation for me, too.”

“This might be that new job, then,” Sho says, grabbing a plate for Matsumoto to transfer the tamagoyaki to. It’s just in time for them to have dinner.

“Maybe,” Matsumoto says as he finally turns off the stove.

They don’t move to the dining table. They eat there on the counter, in companionable silence, and Sho wonders how long it has been since he felt it safe to relax around someone. Certainly not in recent memory considering the new status he has, but this is a nice, welcome change. Being able to have dinner like this grants them a normalcy despite the pressing problems they’re currently facing.

“I don’t, to answer your question,” Matsumoto tells him after a moment.

Sho looks at him, his mouth still full of tamagoyaki thus rendering him unable to speak.

“You asked earlier if I miss being mortal,” Matsumoto reminds him. “I don’t. I used to, but now I don’t.”

Before Sho can ask him to elaborate, Matsumoto turns away, heading to the sink to begin washing the dishes.

Sho recognizes a dismissal when he sees it, and he doesn’t push the topic further.

He hands his plate to Matsumoto with a word of thanks.

--

They take strolls around the neighborhood to keep up with the pretense and also for reconnaissance. It’s thanks to these that Sho finds out that Matsumoto has three shrines within the vicinity of the area, two of which are where most of their resources are coming from.

“When you visit your shrine, how do you take the money offered to you?” Sho asks during one of their walks, when they’re pointedly ignoring the lingering stares they know they’ve been receiving since their arrival at the community park. “You don’t just waltz in there and take the offerings, do you?”

“No,” Matsumoto says with a smile that eventually dissolves into laughter, his shoulders shaking. “I’m not a thief.”

“So how?” Sho asks. They are yet to find one of his shrines in the area, though Sho suspects there aren’t any around here. They settled in this particular part of Tokyo because it has the highest divorce rates in the capital. Though Sho has yet to receive news of one in their apartment complex, he isn’t that naïve to think their arrival has totally done away with the problem.

“I visit the shrine,” Matsumoto explains simply. “It’s tied to my existence, so when I’m there, I hear the prayers and I directly receive whatever is being offered. That includes the money.”

Sho glances at the man’s coat pockets. Matsumoto looks quite dashing in his trench coat; he’s always dressed so fashionably that it gets the neighbors talking in anticipation of how he’s going to look the next time he goes out.

Sho can somehow understand their curiosity—he’s not exactly immune to how appealing the fertility god is.

“Why do you ask?” Matsumoto says next, making Sho focus back on him.

“I was thinking of visiting one of mine,” Sho admits, taking care not to look at his companion now. “The one that was desecrated.”

As soon as he hears Matsumoto’s intake of breath, he adds, “I know you will refuse. I know it’s probably not safe for me to do so, but I want to know exactly what was done so I can understand why it manifested as such. Why my own spiritual energy cannot be relied on since then and had to be sealed.”

“They might be in the area,” Matsumoto says after a moment, voice dropping in a whisper. “Your predecessor, I mean. They could be watching that shrine specifically. This could be one of the many traps they’ve laid out for you.”

“I understand that,” Sho tells him with a nod. “But I have to know what happened. How it happened so I can prevent it, if I can.”

Matsumoto sighs, looking conflicted, the crease between his eyebrows growing deeper with each passing second. But Sho holds his ground and doesn’t waver, doesn’t take his words back. He’s been here long enough. He has to see it for himself.

“Follow me,” Matsumoto says eventually, and Sho does.

Matsumoto leads him to the public restrooms, and it’s only when they’re about to enter one that Sho stops. He can feel his face heating up and his mouth feels a little dry.

He has to swallow through a lump in his throat before he manages to get some words out. “You do realize the implication of us entering a single restroom right where our neighbors can see?”

If he can’t see the tips of Matsumoto’s ears reddening, he wouldn’t even know that the man is similarly embarrassed because of how smoothly his answer comes.

“If all they do is gossip about us, we might as well give them something more outrageous to talk about.” He reaches for the door and heads inside, and Sho spends the subsequent seconds contemplating.

Before he can change his mind, he reaches for the knob and follows Matsumoto inside.

“Lock it,” Matsumoto says as soon as he crosses the threshold, and Sho wonders how long he will evade his neighbors until this whole thing is forgotten.

But then his attention is caught by the sudden burst of energy from Matsumoto’s open palm, the cloud-like wisps that soon envelop them both.

“I’ve never travelled in this manner before,” Sho confesses. At Matsumoto’s bewildered look thrown at him, he smiles, sheepish. “You’ve been travelling in this manner all this time while I’m walking around the neighborhood for our groceries?”

“Your spiritual energy is sealed, yes, but I transferred some of mine to you so you can travel using this if you wish,” Matsumoto tells him, frowning now. “Were you walking the entire time?”

“I take the bus sometimes,” Sho says, and when Matsumoto’s jaw drops open in surprise, he laughs. “And there I was, wondering how come you could visit your shrines and communicate with all your attendants and even to Ninomiya with every strand of your hair still in place by the time you return. Now I know. You don’t walk.”

“I walked just now with you,” Matsumoto points out.

“That was a stroll so it doesn’t count,” Sho tells him. “But you don’t walk—in fact, you never walked since we came here. And you never told me.”

“I didn’t know you were walking to get to places,” Matsumoto says, voice suddenly small. Then he appears thoughtful. “Though, that explains why you take longer to run errands.”

“You have to teach me how to do this,” Sho says. “This is convenient; it means I never have to return to the apartment if I forget to take my railcard with me.”

“I can’t believe you have a railcard,” Matsumoto mutters.

“Just because a train killed me before doesn’t mean I’ll let another one do it again,” Sho tells him. “I stand behind the yellow lines now, I’ll have you know.”

“I didn’t say that.” Matsumoto squares his shoulders before speaking once more. “Like all things about our abilities, you simply have to will it.” He looks at Sho expectantly. “Where do you want to go?”

“To my recently desecrated shrine,” he says. Then he backtracks. “But I don’t know where that is.”

“Yes, you do,” Matsumoto says. “It’s your shrine so it’s tied to you.” He reaches for one of Sho’s hands and lets him hold the wisps of energy.

The purple miasma that’s somehow covering them looks sinister, so Sho isn’t expecting how warm it feels now that its core sits on his palm. But he supposes it makes sense for it to be—nothing about Matsumoto Jun suggests a lack of warmth. Despite what his features may suggest.

It makes sense that his energy manifests so similarly to his entire existence; it’s his.

And Sho feels safe while he’s in it.

“Will it,” Matsumoto tells him. “Take us there.”

Sho closes his eyes, and does.

--

When he comes to, he’s greeted by the sight of trees over their heads, of leaves rustling against the wind. The air here is different; colder and lacking the distinct scent that Sho has long associated with bustling, overcrowded cities.

They’re in another prefecture then, somewhere far from Tokyo. When Sho inhales, he smells nothing but the earth, the petrichor so rich it must’ve rained here not too long ago.

When he turns around, he sees it. A temple surrounded by trees, the paths lined with shrubs and bushes that are neatly trimmed. He sees a shrine employee sweeping the grounds, but aside from them, there’s no one else in the area.

Before he can take a step forward, Matsumoto stops him with a hand on his arm.

When Sho looks at him, he gestures to himself.

Sho doesn’t understand.

Matsumoto glances at the shrine employee—who still hasn’t noticed their presence—before turning back to him. “You have to enshroud me as well.”

“Enshroud?” Sho asks, confused.

“They can’t see you,” Matsumoto explains. “You’re inhabiting this shrine. Once you’re here, you cease being mortal and automatically assume divinity. So they can’t see you and you will hear any prayers offered up to you.” He gestures towards himself once more with a flick of his wrist. “But they can see me since this is your shrine and not mine.”

“I don’t feel any different,” Sho says. “How do you know they can’t see me?”

Matsumoto gives him a look, something Sho returns, and the man sighs.

“I will teach you how to enshroud some other time, then,” Matsumoto concedes, then, before Sho can formulate a response, he waves his hand and calls for the attention of the shrine employee. “Pardon me!”

The employee bows and Sho can only trudge after Matsumoto as the man walks over to where the employee is welcoming them.

“Is the shrine accepting visitors at the moment?” Matsumoto asks politely after greeting the man genially, and Sho stands close to him, watching the employee’s expression carefully.

The shrine employee doesn’t even look at him. When they speak, they address Matsumoto alone. “We’ve recently reopened after completing the repairs. You may offer your prayers to the divinity—” they trail off in favor of looking around.

At their apparent confusion, Matsumoto smiles. “Is the shrine unaccustomed to receiving singular devotees?” It doesn’t escape Sho’s notice that Matsumoto brandishes the golden band that adorns his ring finger; Sho has something similar as well, something that mortals will see if they thought to look for it.

But when Sho glances at his own hand, there’s nothing. No ring, and no marks of it around his finger. Where it ought to be now lies unblemished, smooth skin.

“Forgive me, sir,” the employee says with another bow. “The shrine welcomes all visitors, of course. But we haven’t had a singular devotee since...that time.”

“That time,” Matsumoto repeats.

Sho turns to the shrine just as the employee begins explaining. “The shrine was recently set on fire, sir. Thankfully, it wasn’t bad that it would warrant an entirely new one from the local government. But we had to make repairs.”

“I see,” Matsumoto says, stepping close to where Sho now stands. Sho can’t take his eyes away from the temple; he can still see the patches where paint was recently applied to cover the damage left by the fire on the wooden pillars.

There are still marks of soot in the corners, and he’s asking before he even realizes it.

“How many people did it?”

Matsumoto repeats the question for him, and the employee bows once more.

“One,” is their answer. “It was a local who recently underwent a divorce. The news reported that they did it because their former spouse refused to let them see the children, and that they were once a devotee of the Deity of Matrimony.”

“Once,” Sho repeats. “They’re not pertaining to me, are they.”

Matsumoto doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to. Sho understands.

He heads inside, examining the damage this temple sustained. From the looks of it, the efforts of the shrine employees were nothing noteworthy. They did their best, but it was evident that their best meant using whatever they had at their disposal and only calling for professional help regarding things they could no longer fix on their own.

The paint on the pillars is somewhat uneven, the gold that adorned the edges of the ceiling now covered in soot. The rim of the bell at the center of the temple has turned dark, and Sho can only assume that’s because of all the smoke from the fire.

His attention focuses back on Matsumoto when the man grabs the rope and rings the bell once, twice. The sound echoes, but Sho doesn’t expect the way it reverberates in his entire being. All of his attention is on Matsumoto Jun now, like the world around them no longer exists.

He’s all Sho sees.

When Matsumoto shuts his eyes in prayer, hands clasped together before him, Sho hears him.

In his thoughts, he hears Matsumoto Jun.

To the Deity of Matrimony, if he hears me: may he cease doubting himself.

When Matsumoto opens his eyes, he doesn’t look at Sho’s direction. Sho watches him fish inside his pockets for a spare change, catches him smiling before he schools it back to nonchalance as he drops the money through the slit of the collection box.

Sho feels a weight settle in his pocket, and he pauses.

When he slips his hand inside his coat, he fishes out two coins amounting to a thousand yen.

Before he can say a word, Matsumoto is already making his way out and thanking the shrine employee. Sho sees him stop by the booth located just right outside the temple, chatting with the shrine employee stationed there before they hand Matsumoto a wrapped package.

They don’t talk until they’re outside the courtyard, until they’re down the stone steps leading to the grounds and no one can see them.

Matsumoto suddenly ceases his trek downwards, making Sho do the same.

To his surprise, Matsumoto extends a hand between them.

Sho frowns.

“I’m not returning your money,” he says.

He receives a perfectly arched eyebrow. “It’s my money.”

“Which you offered to me,” Sho points out. “So it’s mine now.”

“It was a demonstration,” Matsumoto says. “You asked how it all works; I just showed you.”

“And I’m grateful for the lesson,” Sho tells him. “But I’m not returning it. Didn’t your elders teach you that you shouldn’t make an offering to the gods when you’re insincere? I’ve never heard of a mortal asking a god back for their money.”

“I’m not mortal,” Matsumoto says coolly, the corner of his lips twitching. If Sho didn’t know any better, he’d say the man is simply teasing him and is just trying to have the last word.

“You were one,” Sho says, gesturing to what’s behind them with a tilt of his chin, “in there. In my shrine. So no, I’m not returning it. You have a lot, anyway. Didn’t you say to Nino’s face that your shrines will suffice and can sustain us during our stay here?”

“I did say that,” Matsumoto acknowledges. Then he shrugs. “Fine. Keep it.”

“You bought something earlier,” Sho says, glancing at Matsumoto’s hands in his coat pockets. “What is it?”

Without replying, Matsumoto fishes out the package and hands it over to Sho.

It’s small, wrapped in paper marked with the name of the shrine. When Sho carefully unwraps it, he sees an omamori woven in red thread, the tassels golden.

“You might as well bless it since you’re here,” Matsumoto tells him. “We’re still in the area; you’re still in your divine form.”

Sho faces him, the omamori still lying on his palm. “How do you know I’m in my divine form? I looked at myself while you were talking to the shrine employee and the only thing that changed is that I no longer have the glamor of the ring around my finger.”

He doesn’t expect Matsumoto to frown.

“How do you see yourself?” Matsumoto asks, looking at him now.

Sho shrugs. He’s still in his coat, still in the same jeans that hugged his legs somewhat nicely, still in that white cotton shirt with a colorful pocket. He tells Matsumoto as much. “I look exactly the same since we left the apartment. Minus the ring.”

At that, Matsumoto’s expression shifts. “Is that how you see yourself?”

It’s Sho’s turn to frown now. “What?”

Matsumoto exhales before he replies, eyes meeting Sho’s evenly. “I’m looking at you now and I know you’re in your divine form because you’re not wearing the same clothes when we left the apartment.” At Sho opening his mouth, he shakes his head. “You’re not. You’re seeing that because that’s what you’re expecting to see, what you’ve conditioned your mind to see. That’s the glamor you’re seeing, and that’s not real. Look closer.”

Sho does, and it takes a while.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed but then he sees a shimmer—a ripple on his person that gradually grows in size, and with it, his clothes fading to something else.

A red yukata that’s not too different from the one he used to wear in the Plain of High Heaven.

When he tears his eyes away from himself to look at Matsumoto, in his periphery, he sees himself wearing the coat once more.

“What you’re seeing is how you see yourself,” Matsumoto tells him.

Sho thinks of that statement and can’t help letting out a quiet, mirthless chuckle. “I’m seeing Sakurai Sho, then.”

Because that’s what Sakurai Sho is, to him. Just an ordinary person who was somehow unfortunate enough to not simply die when it was his time, instead tossed into this mess that he had no idea how to fix.

He hears the distinct click of Matsumoto’s tongue.

“You’re never just Sakurai Sho,” Matsumoto tells him quietly, sincerely. Sho thinks he may be hearing things or projecting, but he can’t detect any lie in those words. “Someday, I hope what I prayed for back there will come true.”

Matsumoto resumes descending the stone steps then, and Sho watches him for a moment before he wills his feet to follow.

--

Their stay in the Mortal Realm has lent a familiarity that Sho has grown accustomed to over time. Assimilating into their married life has him ceasing from referring to his companion as Matsumoto since they now share the surname, but since he’s not so comfortable with addressing Matsumoto with the man’s given name, he opts for the portmanteau he heard Aiba Masaki use before.

In his head, though, the man is still Matsumoto. Whenever he catches himself slipping and referring to the man in another manner, he quickly rectifies his mistake. It’s not as if this is a real marriage.

He has become Sho-san now, though. Before this sojourn in the Manifested World, Matsumoto has referred to him as Sakurai with varying honorifics. But the man must’ve realized how awkward it would’ve been if the neighbors heard them, and has taken to calling him Sho-san since then.

Not that Sho has any complaints; he likes it. It almost makes everything in this arrangement believable, especially when Matsumoto casually asks him what he wants for dinner.

After their visit to his recently desecrated shrine, Sho has had some thoughts. Nino’s plan involves having a joyous albeit faux union between two deities to act as bait, but things are progressing too slowly even for Sho’s own tastes. They’ve been here for nearly two months, and while Sho knows that time flows differently here than in the Plain of High Heaven, he’s no longer content with idling around and lying in wait for what his predecessor has in mind.

So he starts searching.

He begins with the statistics—something the internet has graciously provided him with after a couple of seconds upon keying in the search. He looks for which prefectures have the highest divorce rates and which ones are the most sensationalized, digs into what came after the dissolution and how amicable or resentful the separation process had been for both parties, and takes all of those into account.

He’s the marriage deity, he reminds himself as he studies the numbers. If there’s anyone who can do something about this, it’s him.

It’s the research that eventually sends both him and Matsumoto to Kochi, and as soon as the wisps of spiritual energy aiding their teleportation dissipates, Sho feels all tingly—a creeping sensation up his spine that tells him something is amiss.

Feeling quite unsteady on his feet, he reaches for Matsumoto’s forearm for support.

“Something’s not right here,” he tells Matsumoto, who’s sporting a deep furrow between his strong brows.

They teleported right to one of his shrines, but unlike what he felt when he and Matsumoto went to the recently desecrated one, the queasiness he’s currently feeling is almost akin to the time he needed an energy transfer.

He feels a steadying hand on his bicep and finds Matsumoto’s eyes searching his.

“Just a moment,” Sho says, and he’s surprised with how breathy he sounds, like he ran to get here and has exhausted all the spiritual energy in him.

Matsumoto presses his knuckles against Sho’s forehead, concern palpable in his sharp features. “You weren’t burning up before we got here.” He looks around them then, at the quiet, dark surroundings of the shrine’s nearly empty courtyard.

The moon is the only source of light overhead, the illumination somewhat ethereal and adding to the impression that they’re in a place where mortality touches divinity. It’s almost peaceful, except Sho feels that the air is too still and that everything is too quiet.

When he breathes, it’s shallow and not enough.

“Someone’s here,” Matsumoto whispers at the same time Sho sees it past the curve of Matsumoto’s broad shoulder: a shadowed figure looming in the trees watching them intently.

He can’t quite see their face, but looking directly at the figure makes his breath catch in his throat.

His grip tightens around Matsumoto’s forearm. “Don’t look,” he says.

He senses Matsumoto shift, and he doesn’t need to look down to know that the man is summoning a burst of spiritual energy between his fingers.

Sho feels more than sees the figure smile—a menacing smirk that sends a shiver down his spine. Before he can stop Matsumoto from doing something rash, the man pivots on his heel and sends a burst of energy straight to where the figure is.

“Stay behind me,” Matsumoto says, throwing an arm in front of Sho, who vainly attempts to see past the sudden explosion. It damaged the bark of the tree where the figure stood behind earlier, but there’s no one around.

Then they both see it—a flash of movement that leads further into the woods, out of the shrine’s courtyard.

Sho is moving before he even realizes it, giving chase and letting the adrenaline wash away whatever he was feeling earlier when they landed here. In his periphery, he sees Matsumoto sprinting beside him, casting a wary glance in his direction every now and then.

“Do you think—?” Matsumoto tries to ask, but Sho knows.

“Yes,” he says. “It has to be.”

It can only be the one they’ve been looking for since they descended in the Mortal Realm.

Sho is stopped in his tracks by a fierce grip around his bicep, hauling him back and dragging him down, and he finds himself crouching behind a bush with Matsumoto, whose eyes are narrowed at whatever’s before them.

Up ahead is a clearing, and when Sho’s eyes adjust to the darkness, he sees a gathering of people, which isn’t the most concerning part.

It’s the constant flying of souls around the vicinity of the clearing that is.

“So, everything we know is true,” Matsumoto concludes beside him, just as Sho’s mind wraps around what he’s seeing. He doesn’t need to be a god for years to know; there’s no denying it.

It’s a soul binding ceremony.

Sho tries to move closer, but Matsumoto’s grip around his arm tightens to keep him in place.

“We don’t know where they are,” Matsumoto points out, throwing glances at their surroundings as the ceremony proceeds. “They led us here on purpose.”

“They led me here to flaunt,” Sho says, unable to keep himself from seething. The mortals are in the center of the clearing, kept in a daze as the spirits overhead are waiting to swarm them, and since they can’t see them, they have no idea what’s about to happen to them.

Sho grits his teeth in rage when he sees how hopeful and blissful the expressions are on some of the mortals’ faces, their belief that not even death can separate them from the one they truly love.

“This feels like a trap, Sho-san,” Matsumoto tells him, and if Sho thought to listen for it, he would’ve heard the slight panic in Matsumoto’s voice. “This is right outside your shrine; it’s almost as if they want you to see this and to do something about it.”

“I can’t leave those people there,” Sho says, not looking away from where the ceremony is taking place. “Not when they’re like that.”

Matsumoto doesn’t let him go. “I know. We’re not leaving them. But they’re in some kind of a trance and that gives us a bit of time to find out exactly what’s going on here.” He focuses back on the ongoing ceremony. “Do you see them?”

“No,” Sho says. It’s dark; the moonlight is concealed by the thick cover of trees overhead. The only illumination they have is the eerie, green light emitted by the souls flying around the clearing, their hunger and thirst so strong that it makes the hair on Sho’s nape stand.

The sinister energy that has tainted the shrine grounds leaves an awful aftertaste in his mouth, his disgust and disdain multiplying the longer they sit here in the dark and do nothing.

“You can’t take them on as you are now,” Matsumoto reminds him. “They know that. It’s why they led you past the shrine, away from where you can assume divine form. They want you here the way you are now—mortal, just like those people trapped there.”

Rendering him mortal-like before killing him sounds like something his predecessor is inclined to do.

“I can’t just sit here and watch it all happen and do nothing,” Sho seethes, hands fisting at the earth beside his feet. The gravel digs against his palm, the pain negligible. “They made these people believe that they’re giving them another chance at happiness when they’re condemning them to eternal torment—I can’t forgive that.”

“I can’t either,” Matsumoto says, and Sho sees how repulsed the man is by everything now that he looks at him. “Stay here. I’ll set those people free.”

“What?” Sho protests, reaching for Matsumoto’s shoulder and hauling him back. “I can’t just stay here! Let me help.”

Matsumoto presses his knuckles against Sho’s forehead then shakes his head. “You’re still burning up for reasons we don’t know. Whatever spell is keeping those people in a trance might affect you and I will not risk that.”

Sho can only watch as Matsumoto produces a tiny burst of energy between his thumb and index finger, something he flicks in Sho’s direction without warning. The effect is immediate; Sho sees a pall fall over him, dotted with starlight and as dark as night.

“I did say I’ll teach you how to enshroud,” Matsumoto says with a fleeting smile as he stands. “But for now, you’ll have to settle for me showing you what it looks like.”

He leaves Sho concealed in darkness then. When Sho tries to follow, he feels restricted, like something is holding him in place. He can move, but when he tries to approach the clearing, it feels as if something is not permitting him to take another step.

He looks at his arms, at the pall covering him like mist. When he moves, it shifts with him gracefully and accordingly, like a shadow.

He lifts his head and sees Matsumoto breaking the spell with another flick of his wrist, releasing a burst of purple spiritual energy that sends the souls overhead in a frenzy, their flight disrupted and no longer synchronous.

He feels the spell break—like the stillness around them is breached and breathing comes easier to him, and the people at the center of the clearing open their eyes once before collapsing to the ground.

Before Sho can worry about them, however, the green light emitted by the souls overhead suddenly increases in intensity, and he screams Matsumoto’s name just as the souls descend on the man and begin to swarm him.

Sho tries to reach him, but the pall is preventing him to—its incessant pull holding him back and keeping him just outside of the clearing.

Just as he’s trying to figure out how to do away with the shroud, he hears something else.

“He won’t die,” a voice says, feminine and inflectionless, the certainty in the tone almost reassuring except Sho knows he has to be on his guard. “He’s too strong for them, but they can keep him distracted.”

He turns slowly, and sees the same figure from earlier, hidden by shadows once more, standing only a few feet away from where he is.

“What a troublesome pair you make,” they say, and Sho detects amusement in the voice this time. “I didn’t think anyone would willingly come here to find me—so assured of their comfort and luxury are those gods that they will never dirty their hands and pry into the mortals’ businesses. So imagine my surprise.”

Sho doesn’t speak; he’s noticed something the moment they started speaking: they haven’t taken a single step forward to approach him. He was expecting it; he’s weaker than them and this far from his own temple, he has assumed mortal guise once more and can be harmed easily.

But they haven’t moved. They remain there in the shadows, addressing someone they know to be there.

They can’t see him.

Matsumoto has enshrouded him and concealed him from divine and mortal sight alike.

He looks over his shoulder and sees bursts of energy that break off the swarm—Matsumoto is holding his own and fighting them off, while protecting the mortals at the same time, perhaps.

Sho is of no help to him, but if he gives away his only advantage in this situation, things can get worse.

“How’s your spiritual energy holding up?” they ask, and Sho feels them smile; it’s unmistakable even in the darkness. “There’s likely not a lot left there to make it worth my while, but then again, I didn’t expect another god to give you their aid and make everything more interesting.”

Sho is burning with questions for his predecessor now that he’s met them, and it’s a struggle not to speak. If he gives himself away, who knows what they’ll do to him?

“My brother sent you to your death when he allowed you to come after me,” they say, and Sho feels the air between them grow tense and cold, the shift so abrupt that it takes all of his focus. Even the sounds from behind him become muted. “If he wants me, he will have to descend himself. A lesser god like you will never accomplish what he asked you to—” Sho sees them glance behind him, “—not even with the help of another lesser, albeit more accomplished, god on your side.”

Sho opens his mouth, but whatever he’s about to say is cut off when something pierces the silence—a scream of pain behind him.

He turns and sees Matsumoto casting a protective barrier around the people by his feet before he releases another, stronger pulse of purple energy that effectively sends the souls back, and the gust of wind that follows carries their anguished screams as they fly away, disappearing into the small cracks in the air that suddenly appear.

Rifts, Sho realizes, remembering Nino’s words. An unstable means of travel, but undetectable whenever used. Tears in the fabric of time and reality, interconnecting the three realms, and they’re escaping through them in order to return to the Netherworld.

He hears a click of a tongue and focuses back on the figure in the shadows.

“Useless,” he hears them say.

Sho has a feeling they’re pertaining to all the souls Matsumoto forcibly sent back.

“Perhaps I’ve underestimated the fertility god, then,” is what they say next. Around them, Sho sees the ground shake, tiny pebbles floating around their feet, and he feels the air around them crack.

“We’ll meet again, Sakurai Sho,” they say with certainty. “Or is it Matsumoto now? It’s hard to keep track. But for you, I’ll exert the effort. You’re the kind of message I want to send to my brother, after all.”

A fissure opens just behind them, causing a stillness in their surroundings and filling Sho with something like suffocating dread laced with hopelessness and defeat, and he sees the figure slip through the rift right before it sews itself shut.

The pall falls away from his person and Sho turns back to the clearing to find Matsumoto Jun on the ground, collapsed right next to the mortals he just protected.

He runs.

--

Matsumoto is conscious and able to stand, but he needs help with walking.

Sho doesn’t waste time, throwing the man’s arm around his shoulders while he grabs Matsumoto’s middle to support him.

He throws a glance over his shoulder, at the people they’re leaving behind. “What about them?”

“They’ll wake up eventually, I think,” Matsumoto says, his voice quiet and breathy. His earlier confidence is nowhere to be found, and Sho’s concern doubles. “They’ll likely be confused at first, but they’ll be fine.”

Sho believes him and begins walking, each step careful and slow. It takes some time for them to depart the clearing, and once Sho can see the path that leads outside the forest, he squeezes Matsumoto’s wrist to get the man’s attention.

“Talk to me,” he says, a little too concerned about the man’s silence. Usually, he’d be hearing comments by now, sometimes teasing barbs directed at his inability to accomplish simple tasks like skinning an onion without hurting himself.

He hears nothing now, and that makes him antsy.

Matsumoto coughs, sending a ripple through his body that Sho can feel thanks to their proximity. “You didn’t give yourself away back there. I suppose that does deserve recognition; I can imagine how much you wanted to talk back when they were gauding you into revealing where you were.”

Sho almost rolls his eyes—this is the Matsumoto he wants to hear, this admonishing, long-suffering tolerance he seems to have for Sho the longer they spend time together—but then he remembers, the man is likely injured and playing it cool.

He doesn’t let the words throw him off.

“You can praise me for my self-restraint as much as you want later,” he promises just as they finally make it out of the woods. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”

“I took a hit, Sho-san,” Matsumoto confesses, ending in a hitched groan that makes Sho glance at his person with worry. “You may have to find one of my temples here.”

Up ahead, Sho can see the stone walls surrounding the courtyard of his own. His initial plan was to bring Matsumoto there and somehow contact Yonekura to know what else he can do, but now that Matsumoto is telling him what to do, he stops them both on their tracks.

He’s never traveled to somebody’s shrine before, but if intent is the only thing that makes the difference, then Sho can perhaps manage it.

If anything, he doesn’t want to give up without trying.

“Hold on,” he says as he opens his palm, feeling a surge of energy pulse within him before it coalesces into his palm.

He hears Matsumoto snort in amusement, his breath tickling the side of Sho’s neck. He feels Matsumoto’s hand cover his own over the man’s waist.

“I am,” Matsumoto says, and Sho shuts his eyes and thinks of the closest shrine belonging to the fertility god despite having not seen one in his stay here.

Will it, he remembers, the voice in his head sounding so much like Matsumoto’s own.

Sho does, and the last thing he senses is everything around them shifting as the space surrounding them folds in on itself, before the world rights itself again and he knows they’re no longer in Kochi.

A temple stands before them, dark and foreign, but as soon as Sho leads them both there, the doors rattle before swinging open, and embers sprout out of nowhere to light the candles and provide illumination.

He hurriedly takes Matsumoto inside, and the doors slam shut behind them just as he lowers the man to rest his back against one of the pillars.

Matsumoto’s eyes are closed, his jaw slack and mouth relaxed, and like this, bathed in candlelight, he simply looks as if he dozed off. But his breathing is still shallow, and when Sho finally drags his eyes away from the man’s face, he sees a shimmer on Matsumoto’s middle.

It grows before him and creates a ripple that washes away the glamor, the civilian clothing that Matsumoto’s wearing vanishing before his eyes, replaced by a vibrantly dyed kimono that has the quick-footed fox on one of its sleeves.

When Sho directs his gaze upwards once more, he finds Matsumoto Jun looking at him in all his divinity, the grime and exertion now gone from his face, his eyes so piercing that a part of Sho grows wary at what Matsumoto might see in him.

His breathing has gradually slowed down, and Sho finally lets himself relax, letting out a sigh before he takes a seat in the space beside Matsumoto.

He should probably feel weird about sitting next to a god while he’s in his mortal guise, but Sho has seen a lot of strange things tonight that this is perhaps the least strange out of it all, and the thought amuses him so much that it makes him laugh.

“I hope you’re not laughing because you just set a god to recover on the ground and not somewhere else where he can recover with more dignity,” Matsumoto says, and in Sho’s periphery, he notices that perhaps, he should have set Matsumoto down next to his altar instead of here, like a common pilgrim awaiting a deity’s mercy.

He chuckles, his amusement reaching new heights. “I was just thinking how funny it is that I’m sitting next to a god, then you had to go and say that.” He shakes his head. “Sorry. You should’ve told me where to put you earlier. You’re kind of heavy, you know? And when we got here, you somehow felt heavier.”

“We’re in my temple; I assumed divine form the moment we got here,” Matsumoto says as he leans further back, and Sho takes care not to look at the bob of the man’s throat when he speaks once more. “Though, I didn’t really think you’d manage it.”

Sho shakes his head in amusement. “I’m not that useless, you know.”

“I never said you were,” Matsumoto points out. “How did you do that?”

Sho blinks in confusion. “You mean take us here? You said it’s all about willing it, so that’s what I did. Turns out I don't have to see your shrine to know where it is; I thought it’s like the grocery wherein I have to remember what it looks like before I can get there.” He flashes Matsumoto a proud smile. “I’ve learned a lot since then.”

Matsumoto is frowning now and has the same look of concentration on his features like he often does when he’s in the kitchen being meticulous over quantities dictated by the recipe he’s following.

“Tell me how you did it,” Matsumoto prompts. At Sho’s questioning look, he tuts. “I was halfway to unconsciousness when you shifted us, but I know what I saw. Tell me how you did it.”

“Wait,” Sho says, brows furrowing. “What did you see? I didn’t do anything special; I just did it like I was running errands. Except instead of neighborhood shops, I was thinking of a shrine that’s yours.”

Matsumoto shakes his head. “You didn’t use my energy when you shifted us here. Did you even notice?”

Sho inclines his head as he thinks about it. Then: “I closed my eyes earlier.”

Matsumoto gives him a hard look, and Sho can only smile; at least the man has reverted back to his usual reactions to Sho’s antics.

Then Matsumoto sighs. Here, he’s nothing like the self-assured, proud god Sho first laid eyes on in the Heavenly Spiritual Pavilion. He may be in his fancy kimono, but he doesn’t feel so untouchable and unfazed as he seemed before, and Sho finds himself preferring this. If the other deities in the Plain of High Heaven can see this, perhaps they would cease viewing Matsumoto as an arrogant, independent god.

“My own energy has purplish hues,” Matsumoto says after a moment of seeming deliberation.

“I did notice that,” Sho says. Then he stops. “Wait. You mean it wasn’t of the same hue when I did it earlier?”

“No,” Matsumoto tells him. “You tapped into your own when you brought us here. I know what I saw. Yours has a distinct hue—reddish—and lends a different kind of feel than mine. It’s the first time I felt something like that.”

“Like what?” Sho asks, a little wary of the answer. He hopes it’s not something like an itch to scratch but unable to reach; that would be embarrassing.

Matsumoto lets out a noise of amusement, leaning back against the pillar and shutting his eyes. “Like I was safe after fighting off a swarm of starved souls trying to get a piece of my energy reserve and nearly succeeding.”

Sho scans over his form and finds nothing strange, but he doesn’t let that comfort him. “Are you all right now? I know they injured you in some way even though I can’t see anything on you.”

“Do you remember how it felt when somebody desecrated your temple?” Matsumoto asks.

Sho feels a muscle slide in his jaw, and he nods.

“That’s how it felt when they went after me,” Matsumoto explains, still with his eyes closed. “Wayward spirits can harm our spiritual forms and the more malevolent they are, the more damage they can do. I managed to fend them off, but that didn’t happen with me unscathed.”

“So you need to assume divinity to recover faster,” Sho concludes, and he earns an affirmative hum from Matsumoto.

“Had I been in this form earlier, they wouldn’t have stood a chance,” Matsumoto states, and Sho finds himself laughing as he finally wills himself to completely relax.

It’s just them here, surrounded by candlelight and shadows, the night finally peaceful and letting them have this momentary peace for themselves. He prefers Matsumoto gloating about his abilities than holding him close and hauling him away from whatever else that can harm him.

Sho feels his eyelids grow heavier, and he leans against the pillar, his shoulder touching Matsumoto’s as he says, “I believe you.”

If he falls asleep, he doesn’t notice. The last thing he hears is someone saying his name as the exhaustion completely settles in, and he knows no more.

--

When Sho opens his eyes, he has to blink repeatedly at the unfamiliar flooring that he first sees.

Then, in a rush, he remembers the events that transpired earlier, and he recalls where he is.

“Don’t move,” is what he hears next, said by someone so close that it’s only now that Sho realizes he has fallen asleep with his head resting against one of Matsumoto’s shoulders. “We’re both still recovering.”

“I—” Sho tries, then he clears his throat to get some words out, “I wasn’t injured earlier. What happened?”

“You used your own energy reserve to bring us here,” Matsumoto explains calmly. It’s quite comfortable to lean against him like this, and Sho’s thankful his face can’t be seen from Matsumoto’s angle; if he’s enjoying it, he’s certain he is unable to hide it. “Perhaps you managed to bypass Ryoko-san’s seal because of the urgency of the situation, and now you need to rest as well.”

Sho hears a click of a tongue and braces himself for a scolding.

“You’re reckless, Sho-san,” Matsumoto says, laced with disapproval that he didn’t bother to conceal.

“Says the one who charged straight into a soul binding ceremony after using most of his energy to enshroud me,” Sho points out.

“That—” Another tut, and Sho tries not to smile when Matsumoto sighs. He can feel it so keenly, given their proximity. “That was different.”

“If you didn’t bother to enshroud me, you wouldn’t have sustained any damage,” Sho says, certain of it. Whatever spell Matsumoto put on him required a sufficient expenditure of spiritual energy he could’ve used against fending off the forsaken souls, but he didn’t.

“If I didn’t enshroud you, we wouldn’t be here,” Matsumoto says.

Sho lifts his head, looking past the shrine’s windows, at the darkness that still blanketed the surroundings outside the temple. “What happens if your priests find me here? They can’t see you, so when they come, they’ll only see me. You think you can bail me out in case they hand me over to the police for trespassing?”

“They won’t hand you over to the police,” Matsumoto says, and when Sho glances at him, he sees a small, boyish smile on the man’s full lips.

Matsumoto lifts a finger, flicking something at Sho, and Sho sees the pall from earlier fall over him once more, starlight and galaxies creating a mist that cocoons him.

“They couldn’t see me,” Sho says after a moment, when the pall feels like it’s a part of him and not a concealment spell of Matsumoto’s design. It’s comforting to have around him, like a warm blanket thrown over his shivering body during the height of winter. “They knew I was there, but they didn’t know where I was exactly. Just how strong are you, really? They said they underestimated you.”

“I’m not as influential as they once were,” Matsumoto says quietly, and when Sho glances at him, he sees the man’s cheeks flushing. “I’m nowhere near the level of Nino’s influence, either.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Sho tells him, angling his head so he can look at Matsumoto properly and can admire how embarrassment makes him more appealing. “Why would someone like you side with me? I’m the least influential god in the Plain of High Heaven. Even now, I’m relying on you because I can’t use my own reserve without feeling so drained that I have to take a nap.”

It takes a while for Matsumoto to answer, and when he does, he’s not looking at Sho and his voice is even, each syllable carefully articulated. “This predicament of the High Heaven will affect me eventually. I’ve said that. I might as well act now.”

It’s a diplomatic answer, perfect for the Great Hall of the Heavenly Spiritual Pavilion.

Sho also knows it’s bullshit.

There’s something else here, something that would explain why someone like Matsumoto Jun accepted this entire ruse without a complaint, why he chose to protect Sho first before setting the mortals free earlier, why he remains diligent in checking after Sho’s wellbeing and does each energy transfer between them with such care.

It can’t just be kindness. Sho knows Matsumoto is kind, but he’s a god of a higher status and influence compared to Sho. Any other god of a similar standing would have abandoned him, or worse, not want anything to do with him, and Sho can’t fault them for that given the circumstances.

But Matsumoto volunteered. Whatever compelled him to do so at the time is something Sho still doesn’t know, but he’s determined to find out now.

“It’s not just that,” Sho says, and because he’s watching out for it, he sees the moment Matsumoto freezes. “It’s not just for personal gain. You wouldn’t help me this much if it was.”

“And how well do you know me, Sho-san, for you to say such things with certainty?” is what Sho receives next, and Sho recognizes the defensive tone in there when he thought to listen for it.

Matsumoto is hiding something. Something he doesn’t want Sho to know, perhaps, or something he thinks will be embarrassing to admit. Or both.

Sho is not so cruel to push his buttons, not when the man is already doing so much for him. He looks away and lifts his head from Matsumoto’s shoulder, ignoring how a part of him is already missing the proximity as he scoots to his side to maintain distance between them.

“I spoke out of line,” Sho says, not looking at Matsumoto. “I’m sorry. You’re just doing your job.”

He wonders then, if nothing about this arrangement is a sham and they were truly married to one another, would Matsumoto have answered truthfully? Right now, he owes Sho nothing, not even the truth, and so Sho backs off the moment Matsumoto puts his walls back up.

They’re not really married, Sho reminds himself. After this, assuming they survive it, they’ll go their separate ways and be nothing to each other.

Something in Sho’s chest stings at the thought, and he pointedly ignores it.

It won’t matter when this is over.

The silence between them is far from companionable, and Sho knows it’s his fault. But there’s little else he can do, and now he knows that the sooner he can detach his feelings from whatever the situation necessitates from them, the better it’ll be for him.

Nevermind that his traitorous mind sometimes wanders that he forgets himself. Perhaps all of this is attributable to the glamor—maybe it’s so potent that he can’t help his growing attraction to Matsumoto. If the glamor is making them look happily married to the mortal eye, perhaps it’s influencing him to believe it, too.

Or perhaps it’s because the man is the Deity of Fertility himself, and he’s bound to look the part no matter what Sho does.

Whatever the reason is, Sho knows he must put a stop to it now. There’s no use thinking anything can develop between them. They have a mission. They just had their first run-in with his predecessor, and already they have them recovering in a temple because it proved too much for the both of them to handle.

The last thing they both need is getting sidetracked because Sho somehow finds himself attracted to the first person who is kind to him right after his ascension.

“How long do we have to stay here?” he asks eventually, quietly.

He hears a shift beside him and sees a flurry of purple—Matsumoto’s robes flowing as he stands.

In his periphery, Sho sees him approach the altar, his hand caressing the gilded collection box right under the large, metallic bell overhead.

He looks like every bit of a god Sho has heard tales of, like the ones mentioned in the Kojiki, even—ethereal, divine, and out of reach.

Sho might’ve been a little distracted; it takes him a moment to process what Matsumoto is doing, but when he does, he notices how hard Matsumoto is gripping the gilded edges, his eyes shut.

He’s...healing himself faster, Sho realizes. Or forcing it, perhaps, by asserting his divinity all around this place. Sho can feel it now: the change in the air, the abrupt shift from tranquility to something charged and tense, taut like a plucked bowstring.

Immediately, Sho gets to his feet and rushes to Matsumoto’s side. The man’s knuckles are white because of how hard his grip is, and Sho can feel raw power emanating from him in waves.

Just how badly hurt was he, Sho wonders? All this time, Matsumoto acted like it was nothing, a minor inconvenience at best, but if it’s requiring him to do something drastic just because Sho asked if they can leave, then…

Before Sho can overthink it, he grabs Matsumoto’s shoulders. Or tries to; he finds that he can’t. Something is preventing him, and at first Sho thinks it's the shroud that currently envelops him, but the one preventing him now is not as obtrusive and as blatant as how it felt earlier, so he knows it isn’t the pall doing it.

He can’t touch a god, he realizes. Not when he’s not a god himself, or at least in the same form.

He can see Matsumoto because he’s still a deity albeit in mortal disguise, but he can’t touch him because he’s assumed full divinity while Sho still hasn’t. And Sho has no way of assuming the same form now; he doesn’t have a temple nearby.

But the longer this goes on, the more he worries. Matsumoto is forcing himself to recover at a faster rate than what is probably safe, and it looks as if he’s assumed a healing trance to do so that he can’t hear a single protest from Sho’s lips.

Sho looks around in panic when his line of sight catches on a thick rope hanging from above.

Without thinking twice, he grabs it with both hands and pulls once, twice, with all his strength.

Then he claps his hands twice and holds them together in prayer.

If the Deity of Fertility can hear me, he thinks desperately—prays, may he cease pushing himself too hard for anybody else’s sake.

The tension lifts abruptly, like a weight disappearing on Sho’s shoulders, and Sho quickly opens his eyes to find brown ones staring right at him.

Sho tries to deliver a punch to Matsumoto’s chest but can’t, and it elicits a noise of frustration from him. He wants to hit the man so badly now, and since he can’t, he has to settle for something else.

He yanks at the rope once more, the bell ringing loudly over their heads.

He sees how it affects Matsumoto, how the man’s breath catches and how he jumps momentarily because of the sudden sound.

Good, Sho thinks. At least now he has the man’s attention.

“How badly injured are you?” Sho demands, incensed. One of his hands is curled tightly to a fist, and he’s ready to swing the moment they leave this temple and Matsumoto assumes the mortal guise once more.

“I’m fine,” Matsumoto tells him, his stubbornness rearing its ugly head.

This is not the place for it, in Sho’s opinion. He yanks at the rope once more, letting the bell ring loudly, the sound echoing around them and causing Matsumoto to flinch.

“Will you stop that?” Matsumoto asks, annoyed and wincing. “I hear you just fine; I’m right here!”

“I will pull on this each time you lie to me,” Sho says with an accusatory finger. He doesn’t care how petty he sounds; he’s so worried. “I’ll ask again: how badly injured are you?”

Matsumoto throws a look at his grip on the rope before he grits, “I took a hit, I said.”

Sho tightens his hold around the rope and almost yanks on it again when Matsumoto adds, “All right, all right! You have all of my attention. You know how it feels when you pull on that? I did the same when we visited your shrine.”

Sho does, and he knows how annoying it must be to have the sensation of something like an incessant nagging at the back of your skull, begging for your attention.

Like an itch that cannot be scratched, except with each ring of the bell, the sound reverberates through the entire body.

“Last chance,” he says, not letting go of the rope. Matsumoto has attempted to divert his attention more than once, but Sho sees it for what it is.

Matsumoto doesn’t say a word, instead his fingers reach for the ties of his obi, making Sho pause. The fingers move with purpose, untying knots with quick, deft movements, and soon, Matsumoto is shrugging off one shoulder of his kimono as it lays open.

On any other time, Sho would’ve been embarrassed at the sudden exposure of skin.

But then he sees it.

Right on the man’s middle, at the skin just above the end of his rib, lies a mottle of bruises that now litter the pale flesh. Below them are claw marks whose edges have started to scab, something Sho assumes must be the work of Matsumoto’s hastened attempts to heal himself.

Sho knew that the forsaken souls hunger for something pure given their nature, and that divinity is the purest form of spiritual nourishment for them. But he didn’t expect this. The four gashes that make the mark reach Matsumoto’s flank, and from the looks of it, they went deep.

They will scar, Sho realizes. No amount of spiritual healing can do away with them.

“Are you satisfied?” Matsumoto asks, and Sho weathers the glare he receives.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, just as Matsumoto shrugs the kimono back on and begins retying his obi.

“You already worry too much for the both of us,” Matsumoto says. “It will heal. I just need…” He trails off, looking around them, and Sho understands.

“We’ll stay here as long as you have to,” Sho says, but he squeezes on the rope, something that grabs Matsumoto’s attention at once. “But you’re not going to try to speed up the process like you did earlier, all right? Or I will pull this rope repeatedly if I have to, you have my word on that.”

Matsumoto lets out a long-suffering sigh, and Sho knows he has him.

“Fine,” he says, and Sho finally smiles.

He counts this as a victory.

--

They stay by the altar this time, just because Sho thinks it’s funny that he can simply stand up and reach for the rope if he wants all of Matsumoto Jun’s attention on him once more.

The traitorous part of him revelled in that feeling earlier. It’s one thing to have a god’s attention on you, but it’s another thing entirely to have a god focus solely on you.

And when the god is as attractive as this one, Sho thinks he can’t be blamed for enjoying what little he could out of the situation. It’s not as if Matsumoto would know.

“What else did they say to you?” Matsumoto asks after a moment. He’s sitting beside Sho, but there’s a bit of a distance between them.

Sho leans back, not caring if it’s against the expensive, polished bronzework that belongs to the fertility deity. He thinks he earned it after everything that’s happened. “That I’ll meet them again. That I’m exactly the kind of message they want to send.”

He can sense Matsumoto looking at him, and when the weight of his stare doesn’t go away, Sho knows he’s being assessed.

He waves a dismissive hand. “I’m all good. I don’t need any energy transfer right now. Just focus on yourself, all right?”

It takes another quiet moment before either of them speaks again.

“I’m sorry for earlier,” Matsumoto says, something Sho doesn’t expect to hear from him.

“If you’re talking about hiding the fact that you were terribly injured, then I’m still a little annoyed about that, but sure,” Sho says with a shrug.

“Not that,” Matsumoto counters, and Sho glares at him this time, so it’s Matsumoto’s turn to sigh. “Well, that too, but I meant when I asked how well you knew me. That was uncalled for, and I apologize.”

“No, you’re right,” Sho tells him, shaking his head. “I don’t really know you. Before all this had happened, we didn't even know each other. During my stay in the Plain of High Heaven, before the desecration, I never met you. And now that we’re both here, it hasn’t been too long for us either, so you’re right. You can apologize for downplaying your injury, but there’s no need for calling out something we both know to be true.”

Sho isn’t hurt by this despite him expecting himself to feel that way. It’s the truth. He deserves that wake up call, that blatant acknowledgement that they’re just colleagues at best who happened to find themselves in a situation that warranted a rather drastic action from them.

“But that’s why I’m apologizing, Sho-san,” Matsumoto says, and the shift in his tone makes Sho pause. He sounds...dejected? A little down, like he truly did something wrong and is trying his best to make amends for it.

Sho turns and finds Matsumoto looking at him, at the unfamiliar look he has in his eyes.

Recognition. But for what, exactly?

“You do know me,” Matsumoto says, and like this, with all of his attention on Sho and his body so attuned to Sho’s that his posture is even leaning towards where Sho is, Sho can’t look away. Whatever Matsumoto has to say, he’s certain he won’t miss a word of it.

Matsumoto smiles then, a slight, almost imperceptible twitch of the corner of his mouth that Sho would have missed were he not looking right at the man’s face.

“Senpai,” Matsumoto whispers, and Sho stills.

--

The fact that Sho doesn’t remember right away is the most surprising thing.

But when he does, it knocks the breath out of his lungs, leaving him speechless and reeling. He may have moved backwards to put distance with them—he’s overwhelmed and his mind is swimming with numerous thoughts all at once.

The most pressing one is how he never recognized Matsumoto Jun the moment he laid eyes on him in the Great Hall of the Heavenly Spiritual Pavilion, because Sho thinks he’s never going to forget someone that attractive if he’s met them before, but as it turns out, he actually did.

To his defense, the Matsumoto Jun he’s now remembering didn’t look like this. And by this, he means the arresting features coupled with the broad shoulders, the strong arms, and the confident, haughty smirks.

No, the Matsumoto Jun he can remember meeting before was shy, someone who typed with two fingers and needed help with his reports from time to time, someone whose momentary stay in Sho’s department still warranted a few admirers from the other departments.

Sho wasn’t an audit manager back then, he was still a senior auditor. And Matsumoto Jun was just one of those recruits, a staff auditor that stood out because his demeanor when Sho wasn’t around was very different from what Sho had personally seen.

The Matsumoto Jun he remembers was the kind of salaryman that went partying once Friday hit, the one that frequented clubs. This was before the height of dating apps, and to Sho’s recollection, the man was also the type who accepted any invitation extended to him once he was out of the company.

Did that make Sho hate him? No, he did his job. And what he did in his private life was none of Sho’s business at the time, so despite the rumors and the flirtatious giggles he often heard from his own staff when Matsumoto Jun was around, he ignored them.

Then one day, Matsumoto Jun said he had a job offer somewhere else, from a company owned by a friend’s father that he’d like to help out. Sho can remember it now: how Matsumoto personally went to his office to ask for a recommendation, something Sho initially thought of withholding because he thought, if a friend’s father owned the company, why would Matsumoto Jun need to go through a selection process like everyone else?

Sho hated the type. The ones that could easily get jobs without working hard for it just because they knew someone working on the inside. He could remember how hard he tried to conceal his annoyance at being asked; it was one thing to lose a staff member, but did they have to inconvenience him like this, too?

But then he remembers how Matsumoto Jun surprised him with his answer when he asked to the man’s face what he needed the recommendation for if he knew the big boss.

“I only agreed to give it a shot after I made them promise they won’t treat me differently,” was his response.

Not everyone would answer like that. Sho was expecting something like using his words as an insurance, just to have someone like him put in a good word for them when they need it.

At the time, Sho thought someone like Matsumoto Jun was naïve. As if that could happen. As if this was the ideal world where favoritism didn’t exist and everyone got to where they wanted simply because they did their best.

At the time, Sho remembered thinking that whatever company Matsumoto Jun worked for wouldn’t hold his attention long enough, given who he was. If Matsumoto was hung up on the idea of fairness that no longer existed because of capitalism, then he would never be able to stomach the unpleasantness of having a senpai who gets promoted thanks to the hard work of their staff, and not their own.

Against his better judgment, Sho agreed and wrote one for him.

He knew what kind of company he was a part of, and he knew that the kind of thinking Matsumoto Jun had would only be exploited the longer he stayed, so Sho agreed.

And that was the last time they saw one another.

Sho received no calls inquiring about Matsumoto Jun’s character, and the years went on and he simply forgot. The man was a minor part of his staff, not even stellar enough to be particularly memorable despite his ability to do his job and submit reports on time.

Sho never thought of him until now, when he’s looking right at Matsumoto Jun’s face and sees the same brown eyes he once knew, and while the features have grown softer and fit the man better, there’s no denying now that Sho remembers.

It’s the same person.

“You didn’t look like this when I was still your senpai,” he finds himself saying, something that makes Matsumoto laugh.

Matsumoto leans against the altar, shoulders trembling as amusement washes over him. He’s so incredibly attractive now that Sho thinks it’s unfair; this was a kouhai he never paid much attention to before despite the rest of his staff fawning over him.

And now he’s paying the price.

“I hope not,” Matsumoto says when he recovers. “You barely looked at me back then, Sho-san. And when Nino introduced us and you didn’t recognize me at all, I thought it must be because I’m not the Jun you remember.”

Something twists in Sho’s gut and he pointedly shifts his attention elsewhere rather than try to figure out what it means. “I’m sorry. Were you disappointed that I didn’t recognize you?”

He tries to recall how they were introduced this time and remembers Nino making a passing comment about Matsumoto’s face at the time.

“Disappointed?” Matsumoto echoes before he shakes his head once. “A little, perhaps, but now I’m grateful you didn’t. You didn’t have a good impression of me, Sho-san. Honestly, a part of me still wonders why you agreed to write that recommendation letter. I know you didn’t like me.”

It’s remarkable that someone as handsome as this has little self-esteem, and Sho hates how he may have had a hand in that. If only he knew how many times he has distracted Sho just with his face alone…

Sho gives him an unimpressed look. “I may not have been open to the idea of you clubbing with the rest of my staff once the weekend hit, but you were capable at your job, Matsujun. When it comes to work, I try to be fair.”

“I know,” Matsumoto says with a soft smile. “It’s why I asked you and no one else. Though, I still don’t know what made you agree.”

“You did,” Sho admits, not quite meeting his eyes. “I thought you were naïve for thinking that favoritism wouldn’t get you the job so I agreed. In the end, I guess I was right.”

Matsumoto tilts his head in question. “About what?”

“Well, no one called me,” Sho says. “About you, I mean. So I figured you either got the job because you knew the owner, or you didn’t, but the former is more likely. Was I wrong?”

“I didn’t get the job,” Matsumoto tells him, and at Sho’s frown, he smiles. “I died, remember? I didn’t get to experience what it would’ve been like.”

It hits Sho then, that Matsumoto Jun must’ve been dead for more than ten years. It all makes sense now—Matsumoto’s confusion at the new technology some of their appliances at home have to offer, his lack of knowledge about social media and dating apps when Sho commented on it once after watching a show featuring it.

A shame, really, he remembers Matsumoto saying once. My senpai wrote a glowing recommendation for me, too.

He can feel heat climbing up his cheeks; he was that senpai.

“No one told me,” he finds himself admitting, unable to look at Matsumoto now. How long did Matsumoto Jun look up to him when he was still alive? And he never noticed, never paid attention other than his pitiful attempts at disguising his annoyance at the man’s outgoing behavior. “What happened to you, I mean. I’m sure some of my staff found out, but no one told me.”

“Because they knew you didn’t like me,” Matsumoto says, matter-of-factly, and when Sho doesn’t look at him out of shame, he simply laughs. “It’s all right, Sho-san. It was a long time ago.”

“Just because I didn’t like you back then doesn’t mean I wouldn’t care if you died,” Sho says, facing him now. There’s this uncomfortable, compressing feeling in his chest that leads to him breathing raggedly. “Is that what you think? That I wouldn’t be concerned at all?”

“I didn’t say that,” Matsumoto answers, but his eyes tell Sho that yes, he didn’t think anything happening to him would get Sho’s attention. “But you were always so busy, Sho-san. You were good at your job, but you were also practically married to it. Everyone around you at the time knew you had better things to worry about, I guess.”

Sho never imagined that his behavior when he was in his mid-twenties would come back and bite him in the ass in this manner. “I would’ve made time to visit you, had I known,” he tells Matsumoto sincerely, ascertaining he’s right on the man’s line of sight when he says it. “You were my kouhai, Matsujun. I’m not so heartless.”

“No,” Matsumoto says with a soft smile, “I guess not.” Then he lets out a breath. “Don’t worry. I never held it against you.”

Sho blinks in question, and Matsumoto’s grin widens.

“You not knowing and not remembering, I mean,” he clarifies. “I wouldn’t want you to remember that version of me, too.”

But now Sho does, and he can’t shake it off. The Matsumoto Jun from his past was a kouhai he tolerated because his job called for it, someone who held his attention for as long as their brief exchanges at work went on, and someone he subsequently forgot about thereafter.

The Matsumoto Jun now is a different matter entirely.

And yet, something tells Sho that Matsumoto still thinks of himself as the kind of person that didn’t even leave a dent in Sho’s memory, despite all the changes that happened between them and the situation they’re in at present.

He had a hand in that, he realizes. His callous behavior before was unbefitting of a senpai, and even though he didn’t do anything untoward against his kouhai, the fact that he treated said kouhai like a passing acquaintance he’d soon forget about is still unforgivable.

Was he still that kind of senpai before he died? He doesn’t think so; if anything, his personality now is exactly the same as it was right before he died.

He really mellowed down over the years. A part of him wishes now that Matsumoto could’ve stuck around long enough to have seen it—the Sho from more than a decade ago is nothing like the Sho now.

But Matsumoto died first and ascended before him, as fate would have it. It’s almost hilarious now that Sho thinks about it: Matsumoto is the senpai now.

“That’s why you helped me,” Sho says, knowing it to be true. “Why you’re still helping me. Because of a ‘glowing recommendation’.” He shuts his eyes, the gnawing ache in him growing steadfastly with each passing second.

It’s not kindness. It’s simply Matsumoto thinking he owed him for that favor, and nothing more. It’s just him paying Sho back in his own way.

Was the glamor so well executed that even Sho believed it to be possible? He doesn’t know, but now he feels stupid for thinking it could be something else, that there might be another reason for it.

Of course there wasn’t. Of course it was practical—everything about Matsumoto was practical. He never did things half-heartedly, and each decision had an underlying reason behind it. And this was the reason behind his generous offering of help at the time Sho needed it most.

It’s just paying Sho back. Nothing more.

“You don’t owe me anything, Matsujun,” he says eventually, keeping his gaze at the closed doors of the shrine. Outside, the skies are beginning to lighten, signaling the arrival of dawn. “If I had known, I would’ve refused you that day when you offered. Because you don’t owe me. You didn’t even get the job, you said.”

Sho feels guilty now; Matsumoto got injured because of him, because of someone who was after him. And he did it because of a recommendation letter Sho didn’t even remember writing.

“Are you thinking of sending me back?” Matsumoto asks him, and Sho can feel the man’s eyes on him. “Sending me away while we’re in my temple? That’s new.”

“You got hurt when they’re not even after you,” Sho reminds him.

“It won’t happen again,” Matsumoto says with confidence, but this time, Sho doesn’t believe him.

Matsumoto is turning into someone that can be used against him, he realizes. The wise thing to do would be to call everything off, find another deity willing to help him, and descend again. Preferably someone he’s not attracted to, and preferably without him fake marrying another deity, because Sho thinks he can’t possibly get married to all the available deities in the Plain of High Heaven until his predecessor is caught, now, can he?

Sho knows that if he doesn’t let Matsumoto Jun go now, it will be worse for them.

Because he’ll fall for him.

“Don’t send me back,” is what he hears, and for the first and perhaps the only time, it sounds like the Matsumoto Jun he knew. The kouhai in glasses who acted shy around him but confident around everybody else. “I left once, Sho-san. Let me stay for as much as I’d like to, this time.”

And what is Sho supposed to say to that? He’s a minor god with little abilities, and what divinity has given him is the ability to influence those around him and not a more useful power like resisting temptation for the greater good.

He fists at his coat, not looking at Matsumoto.

“Even if I want to, I can’t,” he says quietly. He doesn’t have enough spiritual energy to sustain himself here; he will wither if he’s left on his own.

“So you want to?” Matsumoto asks, and Sho wonders if he’s hallucinating the hurt he hears there, the slight tremble in his voice that is out of place. He looks so untouchable—a dashing god with his divinity on display, sitting below the altar of his own temple that supplements his power, and yet, Sho managed to hurt him.

With just a few words, he’d done it.

Before Sho can respond, Matsumoto hauls himself to his feet. He pats on his affected side for show, keeping his expression cool as he says, “We can head back now, I think.” His tone is all business, like nothing transpired in this shrine and they’ve got places to be. “Besides, I think the priests in charge of this temple are making their way here.” His eyes narrow. “I can sense them.”

“Oh,” Sho says, nodding. He stands on somewhat wobbly feet, trying his best to ignore the pressure in his chest. If Matsumoto can revert back to nonchalance, so can he. “Of course.”

Matsumoto walks ahead of him as they leave the temple, the candlelight extinguishing themselves as soon as the doors shut behind Sho.

Sho can only look forward, at the back of Matsumoto’s head as the man doesn’t even look back, and wonder if he made things worse.

--

It’s a testament to how their stay at Matsumoto’s temple healed the fertility god; Sho can sense the intensity of the man’s spiritual power when they return home this time.

Their apartment looks the same as they left it. Before Sho can even ask what Matsumoto wants for dinner, the man is excusing himself, muttering about having to inform Nino of the recent events.

Which reminds Sho to do the same with Fuma, and that’s all the words they exchange before Matsumoto disappears off to who knows where once more.

It takes a few days for Sho to realize that he’s being avoided.

At first he thought Matsumoto was just shaken by the encounter—he did get injured, after all, and it was something that manifested even in his divine form—and so Sho decides to give him the space he needs.

They don’t share a room in the apartment, though they make it look like they do. Gods don’t need sleep as mortals do, and though they’re in disguise, Sho finds he doesn’t need it as often as he used to, so he spends his time doing house chores while waiting for Matsumoto to come back.

Except he doesn’t come back. Not after a day or two, and while normally that isn’t a cause of worry for Sho, the timing makes him wonder.

By the third day, he begins to pace.

There’s still no sign of Matsumoto. Sho’s not worried about him being attacked; he thinks he will find out if that happens through Fuma, and Fuma is yet to contact him about Matsumoto, but he doesn’t exclude the possibility.

Still, he knows he’s the reckless one and not Matsumoto, so he’s not that worried over the possibility of that occurring. And he hardly thinks his predecessor would launch another attack so soon—if Sho was in their place, he’d bide his time because doing so ensures that Sho is weaker.

By the fourth day, he stares at his silent mobile phone before sighing and scrolling for Matsumoto’s number. He supposes he can use the communication array for this, direct his to Matsumoto’s and make sure it gets an answer, but then again, the circumstances are calling for his phone.

After all, Sho has just returned from picking up Matsumoto’s expensive box of sparkling water from the man’s supplier and he overheard something while he waited for the elevator.

He hits the Call button and presses the device against his ear.

It rings once, then twice. Then Matsumoto picks up, a terse, “Yes?” that makes it sound like Sho’s the one inconveniencing him.

“I need you to come back,” Sho says evenly, his eyes on the box of water bottles. He’s contemplating putting them in the fridge because he knows Matsumoto only drinks room temperature water, but it all depends on this conversation how petty he’s going to be.

“Has something happened?” is the response, said so coolly and devoid of emotion that Sho has to let out a breath. “Do you need a transfer?”

“No,” Sho says. He’s feeling perfectly fine, although he’s beginning to get irked at the stubbornness he’s hearing; he knows Matsumoto is being formal and obtuse on purpose.

The use of keigo is something he doesn’t miss, either. The man is hellbent on making Sho work for this, and Sho is seriously considering refrigerating half of the water bottles now.

“Then I’m afraid I can’t,” Matsumoto tells him. “I’m attending something the following week. But until then, I will be back—”

“I need you to come back right now,” Sho says over him, not bothering to listen to whatever excuse Matsumoto has for him, “because the neighbors think you grew tired of me and are now speculating that I will cancel the lease by the end of this month.”

There’s a pause from the other line, followed by a flat question of “What,” that almost makes Sho smile, but he holds his ground.

“They think you’re cheating on me, Matsumoto-kun,” he says as sweetly as he can manage, wishing he can see Matsumoto’s face. “Me, the Deity of Matrimony himself. But since they don’t know that, they just think Matsumoto-san from the eighth floor has found someone else.”

“I—what—how—” Matsumoto tries, and Sho wants to laugh but he maintains his composure through sheer will, “How did you even know this? They couldn’t have possibly said that to your face.”

“I overheard them while waiting for the elevator when I picked up your precious water,” Sho says, which is the truth. “They didn’t notice me until it was too late.” He pauses, and when it becomes evident that Matsumoto won’t say anything, he continues, “So come home now, make sure the neighbors will see you, or I’ll find one of your temples and ring the bell there until you do.”

“All my temples are closed at night,” Matsumoto points out.

Stubborn. On any other time, Sho likes that about him. Not now, though.

Sho eyes the box before him and sneers despite Matsumoto not seeing it. He hopes the man can hear it in his voice though. “I’ll refrigerate your water.”

“Don’t,” is the swift, panicked response, and Sho knows he has him.

“Now, Matsujun,” he says, smiling against the phone before cutting the line.

He doesn’t need to wait that long.

When he hears the key being inserted in the front door, he laughs.

--

One of the curses of divinity, Sho discovers, is that if he focuses hard enough, he can piece together a mortal’s thoughts.

It’s a curse because it’s intrusive. Sho values privacy, and had he been in the mortal’s shoes, he knows he wouldn't want anyone to read his thoughts. He supposes it makes sense that gods have this ability; it’s easier to influence someone if you know exactly what they want.

It takes some time for him to exercise this ability, however, given his status as a less powerful god. He never really noticed that he could do it until their apartment complex’s elevator required maintenance and everyone had to use the stairs.

Sho can simply use Matsumoto’s energy reserve to go to places, but after Matsumoto’s stubborn avoidance that lasted four days, he’s determined to use as little of the man’s spiritual energy as he can. Doing so would require fewer energy transfers in the long run, and that will benefit them both.

At least, that’s how Sho rationalized that decision. A part of him knew that deep down, this is just him being petty since his fake husband walked out on him to the point it got their entire building talking.

Which brings Sho to his current predicament. Being stuck in the househusband role means he’s the one who gets to see the neighbors more often, even when he’s running errands. He’s not running one now, but he thought it’ll be nice if he goes for a jog around the neighborhood to keep with the pretense that he’s just a normal person and not a withering god.

Matsumoto is out, as always, and Sho lets him because it’s apparently a private meeting with Yonekura, who found out what happened recently and wasn’t happy about it. Matsumoto likely didn’t want to get reprimanded about getting injured while Sho was present, so he took off somewhere and Sho didn’t mind, because Matsumoto did promise he’d return this time.

So it’s just Sho and a bunch of friendly but equally nosy neighbors and their cute children taking the stairs to head to the ground floor, when he manages to use this ability.

In his defense, he isn’t even trying to read Suzuki-san’s thoughts. He’s just being polite by looking at her face as she chats about the current problems of her preschool son, but amidst all the complaints about her son’s learning curve, he hears it.

An innocuous question wondering whether he and Matsumoto will soon file for divorce.

“Excuse me?” Sho finds himself saying, earning Suzuki’s confusion.

Then Sho hears it again, except this time, because all his focus is on said neighbor, he sees that her mouth doesn’t move.

Poor Sho-kun. He’s so kind, too! This refreshing smile of his is apparently not enough, in the end.

It takes all of Sho’s self-control to school his features to pleasantness, just as Suzuki pats his arm and continues her tirade about her son’s seeming inability to keep his crayons intact.

“I have to replace them at least twice a week!” she complains, and Sho can only flash her what he hopes to be a reassuring smile.

He manages to get that jog after all, and by the time he heads back, the elevator has been fixed so that he doesn't have to exhaust himself to get back to the apartment.

When he returns there, Matsumoto is at the genkan, apparently having just arrived himself.

“How was your run?” Matsumoto asks, just as Sho opens up with, “They think we’re divorcing.”

The look he earns from Matsumoto is worth it; the man’s jaw simply drops as Sho begins unlacing his shoes.

“What,” Matsumoto says next. He’s halfway into toeing off his shoes but now he’s simply standing there, frozen in place as he tries to digest Sho’s words.

Sho, who is sitting at the step leading to the apartment, only hums in agreement.

“My run went fine; thank you for asking. Though, I find it appalling that they think I’m filing for the thing I’m trying to prevent,” he says. And because Matsumoto’s face is still in that state of surprise, he can’t help laughing. “Can you imagine it? If we succeed and ushered a decline in divorce rates, then we’re getting a divorce ourselves…”

He trails off, no longer able to hold his chuckles.

When he recovers, he sighs. “I wonder if that will somehow influence people to do the same, still? I hope it doesn’t. It’ll truly be a waste of everything we worked for.”

“How did you know they think we’re going to divorce?” Matsumoto asks; he’s finally managed to remove his shoes and align them in the rack, in the same meticulous way he always does.

“Why didn’t you tell me we can hear their thoughts?” Sho asks back. They’ve been here long enough.

Matsumoto looks away then, fishing out his house slippers from the rack. “I knew you wouldn’t be comfortable with it.”

“So you can hear them ever since,” Sho says.

Matsumoto’s silence is answer enough. The man enters the apartment without another word, and Sho trudges after him, his feet nearly tripping over one another in his haste.

“What else did they say about you and me?” Sho asks, rounding Matsumoto on the kitchen counter when the man deliberately tries to sidestep him. “First you hid this ability from me. You’re not going to hide what else you heard since we got here.”

“They’re…” Matsumoto lets out a breath, frowning at him now. “Why are you so concerned over what they have to say?”

“Because some of them might have been praying to me all this time and I never knew until now,” Sho says. “But you might have. And you might know what they’re asking for, and if you tell me, then maybe I can make it happen for them. Grant a few prayers while I’m at it.”

“They—” Matsumoto tries, then he clicks his tongue in annoyance, and Sho watches him breathe through his nostrils.

A month or two ago, Sho would’ve been intimidated. Now, he just holds his ground and blocks Matsumoto’s path to the fridge.

“They offhandedly wished they had a husband—and I quote—as ’good-looking’ as you when we first got here,” Matsumoto says. “That it’s a shame we’re married to one another; that it’s two less handsome men in the market.”

Oh. Sho didn’t...well, he didn’t think it was as simple and straightforward as that, but perhaps he should’ve known. With Matsumoto’s looks, it’s only natural people would fawn over him.

And Sho knows he isn’t awful looking himself, so…

“Well,” Sho says after clearing his throat, “I’m glad to know they think I’m good-looking.”

The quirk of the eyebrow accompanied with a head tilt is unfair in Sho’s opinion; it only makes Matsumoto even more attractive. “Did you really just ask me this to fuel your ego? You’re handsome, Sho-san. Not even shedding off divinity can hide that.”

The plunge in Sho’s gut at those words is unprecedented, and Sho almost feels out of balance because of it. It’s one thing to be told he’s attractive, but it’s another thing when the person he’s attracted to is the one that says it.

So Matsumoto thinks he’s handsome? This information alone might’ve made his entire week. He tries to hide it by averting his gaze; there’s no weathering Matsumoto’s brown eyes now, they’re too much for him.

“Is that all they say?” he asks, despite the heat creeping up his cheeks not fading.

“They’re also repeatedly wondering if we’ll ever have time to join them for the weekend barbecue at the rooftop,” Matsumoto tells him. “Though, those lines of thoughts have certainly decreased as of late.”

“Because they’re now wondering if we’re divorcing,” Sho says, remembering. He throws a look at Matsumoto, who only keeps his eyebrow arched at it. “And since it’ll be awkward to invite a couple who might be divorcing to the neighborhood barbecue, well. This is all your fault, you know. If you didn’t leave—”

“I had to,” Matsumoto says, cutting him off.

Sho glares. “It took them four days of your absence to come up with this. I’m trying to get them to believe in me, and—” He sighs then, throwing his hands up in the air.

So much for his growing influence in their stay here. How will the people believe in him now when even with his own blessing, their marriage is already in shambles?

“Let’s go, then,” Matsumoto says, making Sho look at him. He’s leaning against the fridge now, hip jutting out while his arms are crossed, and Sho wonders if he stands like that on purpose.

“Go?”

“To the barbecue,” Matsumoto clarifies. “This weekend. It’s the only time I’m available, anyway. I’ve got something coming up by next week.”

Sho can’t hide his surprise. “You want to socialize with the neighbors? The same neighbors who are speculating I’ll cancel the lease in a few weeks?”

“If they’re not believing in you because of something I did, we might as well show them they’re wrong,” Matsumoto says. Sho thinks this is the closest to an apology that he’ll get from such a stubborn god. “If they see us there…”

“Are you up for this?” Sho asks him seriously. “We can’t show up there and be on different sides of the rooftop—it’ll just make them believe we’re splitting and that will be detrimental to what we’re trying to achieve here overall.”

He’s unprepared when Matsumoto suddenly moves. The man did it so fast, that in one moment he was casually leaning against the fridge, and in the next, he’s got a palm flat on the kitchen counter as he leans dangerously close in Sho’s space.

The only reason Sho manages to hold his ground is that he’s got the edge of the kitchen counter digging against the small of his back. Without it, he would’ve likely stumbled backwards.

“If you’re asking if I can play the part of a dutiful husband,” Matsumoto says, gaze dropping to Sho’s mouth, and Sho doesn’t miss the accompanying decrease in the pitch of his voice, the almost husk, “I can.”

Warmth spreads in Sho, a steadily burning ember that settles at his gut, coalescing into something he’s afraid to name. It almost slips from his mind that this is the fertility god in his space, and the allure is all part of his job.

“This weekend, then,” Sho manages to husk back, and he wonders if it’s a figment of his imagination that Matsumoto’s irises thinned.

Matsumoto’s gaze sweeps down, lingering for a moment at the area of Sho’s collarbone, then he turns away.

“Go bathe,” he tells Sho, his back turned to him as he opens one of the kitchen cabinets to grab a bottle of his expensive water. “You smell like you ran across the entire park.”

“I did run across the entire park,” Sho informs him with a smile; he’s not even offended.

He heads off and runs the bath, not even caring that he’s doing what he’s told.

--

Sho is not an idiot.

He feels like he should get that out first.

He knew what he was signing up for when he agreed to go to the apartment complex’s weekend barbecue. He didn’t even have to bring his own griller—their neighbors happily offered theirs and there’s enough for everyone by the time they got there.

He knew that if their agenda was to ensure that the Deity of Matrimony has a growing local influence, they would have to look the part of a happily married couple despite the swirling rumors about their impending divorce.

He knew all of this.

It still doesn’t prepare him for Matsumoto Jun, in the end.

Fertility god or no, he’s truly one of the biggest sources of Sho’s problems as of late.

There wouldn’t be rumors to put an end to if the man didn’t stay away from him out of stubbornness. There wouldn’t be this problem about losing recently gained believers if they just sat down and had a talk after that unfortunate trip to Kochi.

But since they didn’t, Sho is here, casually chatting with neighbors whose thoughts he’s trying very hard not to read, and is wholly unprepared for Matsumoto directing his attention to him.

Sho is fairly certain he didn’t ring any of the bells in any of the god’s temples, so all of this has to be Matsumoto’s doing. On his own.

For his part, Sho tries. When Ando-san from next door offers him a piece of finely grilled wagyu from Kobe, he doesn’t refuse. It’s good, and he calls for Matsumoto’s attention to have the man sample the morsel himself; Sho knows that Matsumoto likes the expensive, grass-fed kind of beef.

He offers the piece trapped between his fingers, thinking nothing of it. He expected Matsumoto to take the piece from him and let that be the end of it, but the man reaches for his wrist and holds him in place.

Then Matsumoto leans down, taking the piece between his fingers using his mouth, the soft brush of his lips against the tip of Sho’s index finger lingering a little too long to be considered accidental.

His thumb strokes the white of Sho’s wrist for good measure too, and Sho is certain he didn’t imagine Ando-san’s surprised gasp. He’s feeling the same intensity of shock himself, but he thankfully manages to hold it in.

Sho keeps his expression neutral, like this is just a common occurrence in the Matsumoto household despite his thoughts going haywire. In his defense, he’s fake-married to a really attractive person who also happens to be the Deity of Fertility in the Plain of High Heaven, a title that, if anyone looks at him, is something he totally deserves.

Not that Sho’s biased.

If Sho is looking at the leftover juices on Matsumoto’s bottom lip, he thinks he’s not the only one. Matsumoto licks his lips before he lets him go, turning to Ando-san to compliment the quality of the wagyu using terms Sho lacks the comprehension for at present.

If he’s flustered, he can only hope it’s not so obvious. If him being a god means he’s of a higher status than mortals, he hopes that means they don’t see through him.

This would’ve been easier if Matsumoto Jun wasn't…well, the way he is.

Sho watches how his faux spouse interacts with their neighbors, and given the delighted, spirited giggles he elicits from the housewives and the claps on the back he gets from the men, he thinks he’s seeing it at last: the Matsumoto Jun he knew from before, the life of the party.

He’s channelling all of that here, and combined with his ability to influence, he’s succeeding at getting everyone to like him. Perhaps mortals are just more susceptible to the subtle influence brought about by anyone divine, perhaps Matsumoto can simply be charming when he wishes to.

Either way, Sho can see how the opinion about them is shifting. The curious stares they garnered upon their arrival are gone, replaced by fond looks of adoration and hidden, shy smiles. Matsumoto is winning them over with his lighthearted jokes and well-practiced flits of his gaze.

By the end of this neighborhood affair, he’s positive that the rumors about their impending divorce will cease.

Sho is nursing a can of beer now, engaged in a conversation about rugby while also half-minding his talented husband when it catches his eye.

It shouldn’t have. It’s just a simple gesture.

But the way he instantly zones on it is alarming, if only he isn’t so distracted at how it’s making him feel.

One of their neighbors’ daughters, a beautiful OL in her late twenties, casually places a hand against Matsumoto’s chest as she laughs at something he said. Sho thinks it’s Tanaka-san’s eldest daughter; he may have met her once or twice.

Matsumoto is in one of those tight-fitting shirts that makes Sho look at him when he knows Matsumoto doesn’t notice, so a part of Sho understands.

But at the same time...Matsumoto is, technically, married.

Sho shouldn’t be seeing this. But he’s looking right at it despite first catching it in his periphery because he can’t help himself. Something hideous is rearing its head, roiling in his gut and it makes his grip around the beer can tighten, especially when he sees Matsumoto laugh back, lines surrounding his eyes.

Sho is not an idiot.

He knows what flirting looks like.

And he knows when someone is flirting with Matsumoto Jun because he’s seen it happen before, when they were both still alive and he was the guy’s workaholic senpai.

He hides half of his face behind the beer can and attempts to focus back on the rugby conversation, but he hears another high-spirited giggle followed by Matsumoto’s own that makes him shut his eyes.

Then, someone screams.

It might be Suzuki-san or Ando-san. Or maybe it was both of them, or someone else entirely. But someone screams, shrill and nearly making Sho jump, except the scream is simultaneous with a sudden burst of flame from one of the grillers, the height of which is taller than what ought to be possible.

It also happens to be the griller that is closest to Sho, and the next thing he knows, Matsumoto is in his line of vision, hands grasping his shoulders.

There’s a sudden commotion around them, brought about by the unprecedented explosion that prompts some of the men to unplug the grillers and the others to grab the nearest fire extinguisher, but not Sho’s husband.

His own husband is right in his space, eyes laced with worry as he checks if Sho’s all right.

Then Matsumoto’s eyes narrow, casting a sidelong glance towards the griller, and he seems to have understood something.

Sho doesn’t expect to be pulled closer, but he allows it. Matsumoto holds him, as if shielding him from something, mouth hovering close to his ear when he whispers, “You’ve gotten stronger.”

There’s pride in there, and something else too. Sho is careful not to let his mouth move too much; he can feel eyes on them. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t have to burn the entire apartment down if you want my attention,” Matsumoto says, punctuating it with the softest brush of his lips against Sho’s temple.

The display of tenderness nearly causes Sho to drop the can of beer, but he manages to grip it tight at the last second.

“That wasn’t me,” he says. This close, he can smell Matsumoto—not the scent of cologne he puts on himself to maintain an appearance—but the one underneath.

The god hiding among mortal men.

“That was you,” Matsumoto tells him with a smile, one that made him even more unfairly handsome in Sho’s eyes. “I felt it.”

Whatever reply Sho has for him is cut off by the approach of Tanaka-san, asking if Sho’s all right since he was the closest to the explosion. Sho has to assure the kind man that he’s fine, and Matsumoto supplements his words with a caress on Sho’s arm, a warm point of contact that Sho diverts his attention from by scanning the rooftop.

People are looking at them. It’s nothing new. But when Sho listens, he can hear no thoughts about the possibility of them divorcing.

Instead, he hears something else that makes him laugh, and he has to hide his face against Matsumoto’s shoulder as he gives in.

“You just made a griller explode and you’re laughing,” Matsumoto says out of the corner of his mouth, but from the quiver in his voice, Sho knows he’s at his limit at holding it in.

“I just heard one of them ask the heavens what do they have to give in order to have a husband who prioritizes checking their wellbeing rather than the state of the griller,” Sho tells him before he dissolves into a fit of giggles that he has to angle his face away from everyone else for them to not see. “Matsujun, you’re quickly becoming the ideal husband. You have to thank me for making that happen, don’t you think?”

“Remind me, then,” Matsumoto says, just as someone calls their attention.

Sho lifts his head, flashing his kind neighbors a smile as he extracts himself away from the comforting warmth of Matsumoto’s strong arms. “I’m quite all right,” he informs their onlookers. “Just a little shaken, of course.”

“Of course,” he hears Matsumoto mutter behind him, but Sho ignores him in favor of being pampered by the local housewives. They inspect his person, and after ascertaining that he’s indeed unharmed, they usher him to a comfortable seat and offer him assorted baked goods.

Being the househusband earns him a special privilege among them, and if they spend the rest of that afternoon with Sho not seeing anyone else attempt to flirt with Matsumoto Jun, he tries not to be too happy about it.

--

With their reputation in the apartment complex salvaged, Sho wastes no time rubbing it in Matsumoto’s face that it’s all mostly his doing, and that the man now owes him because Sho saved him from being dubbed as a serial adulterer by the housewives, who all happened to be on Sho’s side.

“I did say to remind me to thank you, didn’t I,” Matsumoto says, when they’re both in the living room and Sho’s busy scrolling through food reviews on his phone.

“I’ll accept any kind of offering at my nearest temple,” Sho says without looking at him.

“Is that what you really want, Sho-san?” Matsumoto asks, the lilt in his tone making Sho pause and look at him. “Because I’ve got something else in mind.”

It takes approximately two seconds for Sho to halt whatever traitorous thoughts his mind would’ve come up with. Matsumoto has dressed down, of course, since they’re at home. He’s in a loose fitting shirt and a pair of shorts, and Sho is in his favorite pair of gray sweats.

Neither of them look particularly appealing to one another, so Sho immediately silences the thought that makes him appreciate how thick Matsumoto’s thighs are.

“Much as I’d like to join next week’s barbecue because of the free wagyu, don’t you have something to do?” Sho asks, remembering.

“I do,” Matsumoto affirms with a nod. He lowers the tablet he’s holding, giving Sho a view of his face in glasses. It’s still something Sho is getting used to; the Matsumoto Jun he knew from before did wear glasses, but he wasn’t this...defined before so this hits a little different. “If you want, you can come with me.”

It’s a casual invite. Nothing more. Sho gives him a skeptical look.

“We’re not going to make an impromptu trip to one of your shrines because you’re going to get injured, are we?”

“I hope not,” Matsumoto says, taking off his glasses and pinching his nasal bridge. All the reading must’ve strained his eyes. “My festival is happening this weekend.”

“Oh,” Sho says, genuinely surprised. “Is that what you’ve been reading about? You’re reading about how they honor you now?”

“I’m trying to decide which shrine to prioritize since it’s being held in multiple places, and because the glamor is in effect, I can only attend one this time,” Matsumoto says. Then he extends the tablet to Sho, who accepts it with both hands. “You can decide for us.”

Sho turns to the tablet and sees the maps app opened, the different shrines dedicated to the Deity of Fertility marked accordingly, but the map is zoomed on Kanayama.

“Before I pick,” Sho says, glancing at Matsumoto, “what exactly happens in your festival?”

He receives an arched eyebrow. “You never attended any festivals before?”

“I have,” Sho says, a little offended. “I even attended a Tenjin Matsuri. But I have to admit I’ve never heard of yours before and I haven’t been a part of it.”

“Well, you’ll see this weekend,” is all Matsumoto says, no longer looking at him. “Pick one.”

Sho does, and come the weekend, they find themselves there, just when the people are beginning to gather outside one of Matsumoto’s shrines in anticipation of the upcoming procession.

Thanks to the glamor, they simply look like ordinary people who arrived to join in on the fun. Nobody even gave them a second glance, lending to the illusion that they’re not gods, and that this is not the Deity of Fertility with Sho attending a festival for his namesake.

The procession starts, and as soon as Sho sees the mikoshi, he bursts into loud, obnoxious laughter, hand finding Matsumoto’s arm and gripping tight to steady himself.

In hindsight, he really should’ve seen it coming. It’s a fertility festival. What else would it be but an event full of phallic objects?

“Stop,” Matsumoto says, giving him a disapproving look. “Are you serious? You’ve never heard of this before?”

When Sho recovers, he nearly loses it once more because the next mikoshi is another wooden phallus, but unlike the previous one painted black, this one is bright pink.

He slaps a hand over his mouth and cherishes the moment he can laugh freely at Matsumoto’s indignant expression. “I have,” he says, still wheezing, “but I don’t know. I just never thought it’s this festival. It slipped my mind entirely. How many mikoshis are there?”

Matsumoto rolls his eyes, but he answers anyway. “Three.”

“Do you have to bless them?” Sho asks. He has recovered from his initial amusement, but nothing can make him stop smiling, he thinks. “I’ve never attended a festival dedicated to a god with said god right by my side.”

“Me being here is enough,” Matsumoto explains, and now that Sho focuses on him, he can sense the spiritual energy around Matsumoto’s form despite the glamor. “It’s...a good feeling. Like a refreshing bath after a tiring work day.”

“So all these people are supplementing your spiritual reserve,” Sho concludes, earning Matsumoto’s nod. He smiles. “That’s...amazing, I guess.” He never really thought of festivals as something that pleased the gods back when he was still alive, but now he’s seeing it differently.

They follow the procession, with Sho snorting in amusement as the third mikoshi pops into view. And when they roam the streets by following the crowd, he sees the numerous phallic-shaped candies and sweets on sale.

He extends a hand to Matsumoto, who gives him a pointed, questioning look.

“I want one of the dick candies,” he says. “This is your festival, so we might as well use your shrine’s money for it, right?”

“You didn’t just call it that,” Matsumoto huffs, but he hands over the money anyway, and to placate him, Sho purchases a candy for him as well.

When he hands the candy to Matsumoto, the man glares.

“What?” Sho asks, incredulous. “Don’t tell me you’ve never tried it before?”

“I always participated in these while in divine form,” Matsumoto tells him. “We can’t eat mortal food when we’re in divine form.”

“I know, but you’re not in divine form now,” Sho says, inclining his head for emphasis. The glamor is in effect, and even though there’s this abundant surge of energy within Matsumoto, he’s not fully a god.

Sho would know. Matsumoto’s divine form is more intense, stronger than his mortal guise. Every word of his held a different kind of weight, like his words couldn’t be countered.

Matsumoto doesn’t budge. Sho sighs, shrugging. “Fine. More for me.”

He unwraps one of the candies and presses the tip against his bottom lip before flicking his tongue to sample it. A little too sweet, something like a mixture of strawberry and lots of melted sugar, perhaps with a dose of honey, even. Sho supposes it’s not bad, but it will definitely give him a sore throat if he indulges in too much.

He sucks at the tip and licks his lips before nodding. Definitely strawberry.

He absentmindedly consumes the candy as they watch the procession, Sho snorting in amusement every now and then as the people cheer when the pink mikoshi passes by them.

He looks at Matsumoto, who’s already staring at him.

Sho pauses and takes it in, weathers that stare with practiced ease. He sees something foreign there; it’s not the usual long-suffering stare full of exasperation that Matsumoto gives him when he’s being annoyingly loud as he laughs.

It’s something else. Then, to test his theory, he presses the tip of the candy against his bottom lip and licks it slowly.

The parting of Matsumoto’s full lips sends a heady rush of something warm that settles at the pit of Sho’s stomach, causing his breath to come out rushed. But Sho is a competitive person by nature, the type who refuses to quit something he may have started, so he wraps his lips around the tip and makes a small but forceful suck.

He doesn’t miss the way Matsumoto licks his lips.

There’s an attractive flush blooming on the man’s cheeks, something Sho doesn’t miss because he’s looking right at it, and it thrills him to know that he’s the one who put it there. Matsumoto has a paler complexion, and any rushes of blood on his person are quite discernible.

Sho samples the candy a bit more, rather enjoying how he has all of Matsumoto’s attention on him. Here he is, surrounded by a massive crowd of people honoring the Deity of Fertility, but said deity is looking nowhere else.

There’s something incredibly thrilling about being the recipient of that attention alone.

Sho wipes the corner of his mouth with his thumb, catching onto a bit of sweetness there from the candy.

When he speaks, he hears his own voice come out as a husk. “You can try it, you know.”

Around them, the procession goes on, but neither of them pay it any mind. Perhaps it’s because of their influence that people simply manage to avoid them despite the overcrowded street—Sho can’t quite focus on that now, not when he’s seeing what he thinks is a sign of want in Matsumoto’s eyes.

His breath catches in his throat when Matsumoto grabs his wrist, pulling it close before he presses his mouth against Sho’s thumb, sucking on the residue and making Sho utter a quiet, almost imperceptible moan.

When he meets Matsumoto’s eyes, he’s certain that the man heard him earlier.

“Too sweet,” Matsumoto says, his voice gravelly, then he completely draws back, but not before his eyes linger on Sho’s mouth.

Sho resolves not to look at him then, his nerves frayed. When he spots a stall at the side of the street that’s offering mini games, he makes his way to it without even thinking of calling Matsumoto’s attention.

Which he didn’t have to do; by the time he reaches the stall, Matsumoto is right behind him. Sho has foregone consuming the candy and instead tries to calm himself by shifting his focus to the mini games.

It’s nothing different from the summer festivals he attended before when he was still alive. This particular street in Kanayama has been turned to something like a fairground, and Sho can see a series of similar stalls when he cranes his neck to inspect over the throng of people.

He turns, only to find Matsumoto peering from behind his shoulder, their faces a little too close.

If Sho reddens, he can’t help it.

“Don’t tell me you want a dick-shaped stuffed toy now,” Matsumoto says, eyeing the prizes laid out before them.

“Maybe I want the one that’s shaped like a vagina,” Sho says, gesturing to that one specifically. “For a change.”

Matsumoto lifts his gaze, but the tip of his chin still grazes Sho’s shoulder. “How bad do you want it?”

Sho follows the direction of his gaze, at the dartboard situated at the back of the stall that the people around them have been trying vainly to hit for a while now.

“Are you good at darts?” he asks.

The answer he receives, Sho has to admit, is really kind of sexy.

“How many bull’s eyes do you want?” Matsumoto asks back.

Sho looks at the varieties of stuffed toys between them and decides he’s good with having both. “Two.”

Matsumoto pays the shopkeeper, accepting the three darts without another word and aims.

His first throw hits true, right at the center of the dartboard, and Sho can’t help laughing as the people around them gasp. He’s amazed too, but he’s also simultaneously tickled with the fact that his husband is currently flexing in front of his believers.

He’s such a show-off in his own festival, but it’s also an arrestingly good look on him.

“That’s one,” Sho acknowledges with a grin.

Matsumoto throws the next one without another word, and it hits the spot next to the first. Sho considers the possibility of Matsumoto using his divine powers to make him hit the target so effortlessly, but he knows that Matsumoto isn’t the type to rely on his spiritual energy then use it on something as simple as a festival stall.

It’s all him. No divinity involved. He’s just really good at darts.

Sho turns to the shopkeeper, whose surprised face makes him smile wider. “What happens if he hits it again with the third dart?”

The shopkeeper focuses back on him and bows. “You’ll get a special prize.”

Sho looks around the stall and sees nothing but the rows of stuffed toys. “Special prize,” he repeats.

The shopkeeper simply nods and doesn’t elaborate.

He faces Matsumoto once more and is greeted by the sight of the final dart being offered to him.

“You only wanted two,” Matsumoto reminds him with a smirk. “If you want the third, you’re getting it yourself.”

“Aren’t you the slightest bit curious about this special prize?” Sho asks as he takes the dart from him. Unlike Matsumoto, he’s no good at darts. He knows he’ll waste this throw, and he hopes nobody is watching, but after Matsumoto’s display of skill, it’s a futile hope.

“I am,” Matsumoto says coolly, crossing his arms over his chest as he assumes a more relaxed posture and settles for watching Sho aim. “But I’m not getting it myself.”

“I’m bad at this, I’ll have you know,” Sho warns him.

“Throw,” Matsumoto says.

Sho sighs, takes aim, and does as he’s told.

The dart soars, and, to his and everyone’s surprise, hits the mark.

Right in the center.

He can feel the weight of Matsumoto’s stare, and he smiles before facing the man, relishing the surprised and questioning look he sees there.

“I thought you said you’re bad at darts,” Matsumoto says, an arched eyebrow directed at Sho.

“Not when I have the power of Aiba Masaki in me,” Sho says by way of an explanation, knowing it to be the reason, and the snort of laughter from Matsumoto makes him laugh too.

The shopkeeper calls for their attention and hands over two stuffed toys for Matsumoto’s wins, something Sho accepts for him.

“How unfair,” Matsumoto says, but his tone is inflectionless. “I won those for you without divine blessing.”

Sho only shrugs in reply, not even the slightest bit guilty. Besides, he’s a little preoccupied at present, examining how the one made to look like a vagina is made just as the shopkeeper hands him a coupon.

“Congratulations for winning the special prize,” they tell him, head lowered in bow as they wait for Sho to take what’s in between their fingers.

Sho does, and his eyes widen when he realizes what it is.

It’s a free stay at a local love hotel.

It’s only for one night, but still, it’s free. For someone who receives very little offerings in his shrines and mostly depends on Matsumoto for money, it’s a good deal.

But also, it’s a love hotel.

Before he can say a word, Matsumoto takes the coupon from him and reads what it says. His expression betrays nothing, but then again, this is a festival in his honor, so he probably already has an idea or two at what kind of prizes there are.

“Do you want to go?” is the question Sho hears, and one he doesn’t expect.

Sho can only stare as Matsumoto looks at anywhere but him.

Sho weighs his options. If he says no, they will return to their apartment where their every move is being watched by their neighbors a little too engrossed with their lives, and that’ll be it. If he agrees, it’s his chance to at least pay back some of the things Matsumoto has done for him so far, while also giving themselves a brief respite from the pretenses they have to keep while they’re at the apartment.

But again, it’s a love hotel.

Sho makes up his mind, meeting Matsumoto’s gaze evenly this time.

“Do you have anywhere else to be?” he asks. This festival is being held at multiple places, and if Matsumoto has to head off somewhere else to take part in certain festivities, then—

“No,” Matsumoto answers, cutting off Sho’s thoughts, and Sho nods.

“Good,” is all he says, and he turns away.

--

When Sakurai Sho, Deity of Matrimony of the Plain of High Heaven, volunteered for a Heavenly Spiritual Emperor-sanctioned mission, it never crossed his mind that doing so would lead him onto a path wherein he’d someday find himself in a love hotel with the Deity of Fertility.

Perhaps neither of them saw this coming.

The room they won is quite spacious, the ceiling adorned with a mini chandelier that turned the light pinkish. Thankfully, there’s a shortage of phallic objects in there, because Sho thinks he’s seen enough in the festival earlier.

When he examines the glass shelf situated by the side of the bed though, he pauses.

The variety of...tools that he sees in there are quite a bit too much to take in at first glance. There are at least three different kinds of cuffs, and next to them are blindfolds made of varying materials, and below those are bottles of lube and boxes of condoms in different flavors.

It’s all well-stocked. Special prize, indeed.

Sho turns to Matsumoto, who has turned on the television and is casually flipping through the channels. He didn’t even blink when they entered the room, instead heading straight for the couch and sitting comfortably while letting Sho have a look around.

When you’re the Deity of Fertility and people are dedicating all sorts of phallic objects in your honor, Sho supposes it does condition you to not feel an ounce of embarrassment as time goes on.

Sho takes a seat at the other end of the couch, glancing once at the nighttime drama Matsumoto pretends to be watching. They both know he’s not interested; Sho can tell with the way he doesn’t comment on what's happening.

Matsumoto Jun is the type who talks to the TV, and the more engrossed he is, the more talkative he becomes. If he’s this quiet, it means he doesn’t give a shit.

His posture is relaxed though: head against his fist, arm resting on the couch’s back to support his weight. His legs are folded, one knee raised, his other hand resting right on top of it.

“So what happens if the Deity of Fertility blesses his believers on his festive day?” Sho asks.

Without looking at him, Matsumoto raises and waves his hand, and then settles it back on his knee.

For a moment, nothing happens. The drama eventually transitions to a CM featuring an actress Sho has taken a liking to because of their kind eyes and sweet smile, then another CM follows it.

Then Sho hears it: the unmistakable sounds of a bedframe hitting the wall of the adjacent room, interspersed with groans of evident pleasure.

Sho gawks at Matsumoto, at the expressionless face right before him.

Did he just bless the entire building and gave everyone more stamina?

Another loud creak, this time from the floor above them, and Sho laughs.

“You’re feeling generous today, aren’t you,” Sho remarks, shaking his head. Around them are muted sounds of people having vigorous sex, and perhaps Matsumoto’s nonchalance at all of it is somewhat infectious that Sho no longer feels as embarrassed about it as before.

“They honored me today,” Matsumoto acknowledges with a slight curve of his lips. “When someone pleases a god, the god sees fit to reward them, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” Sho says, shaking his head once more when he hears another thud from above their heads. Then his eyes narrow. “How did you become the Deity of Fertility, anyway?”

At the questioning look he receives from Matsumoto, he elaborates. “Ohno—well, the Heavenly Sovereign, that is—appointed me as the Deity of Matrimony because he claimed I had an affinity for causing it when I was still alive.”

“And did you?” Matsumoto asks.

“Yes,” Sho says. “I think? You were gone by this time so there’s no way for you to know, but a lot of people did get married right after meeting me. Everyone in the company referred to me as a marriage shrine for that.”

“Sakurai the marriage shrine,” Matsumoto says, and Sho picks up a cushion and flings it at him, something the man catches without effort.

“It’s true,” Sho insists.

“I never said it wasn’t,” Matsumoto says with a smile. “So that’s the reason he gave you to you?”

“That, and of course, because the position at the time of my ascension was vacant,” Sho acknowledges. “But enough about me; I asked you first.” Then Sho pauses, remembering something. “Oh. Maybe the Heavenly Sovereign was a different person when you were appointed?”

“It’s the same,” Matsumoto says with a shake of his head. “Ohno, I mean. He appointed me too. I told him he had the wrong guy, that I was no god, that I was just a salaryman who died because he chose to cross the street ahead of a little girl.”

Sho doesn’t say anything, and simply opts to listen. Something about Matsumoto’s words remind him too keenly of his own experience with Ohno.

“As to how I became the Deity of Fertility, well,” Matsumoto begins, then he chuckles softly, “you know the reason.”

Sho blinks, not quite comprehending. He tells Matsumoto as much. “I don’t think I do.”

“You do,” Matsumoto says with a firm nod. “It’s why you didn’t like me back when I was your kouhai.”

The clubbing. The late-night drinks. The rumors of him sleeping around. The weekly talk of him having charmed yet another employee from a different floor, and that they took their breaks together with increasing frequency.

All the things that Sho deliberately ignored about him because he wanted to be fair and to focus on the man’s work ethic instead of his tendencies to party. All of those were true, and Sho is getting confirmation of it now.

Sho supposes he wouldn’t be the Deity of Fertility if he wasn’t at least sexually active at the time of his death.

“Why,” he begins, feeling Matsumoto’s eyes on him, “are you so convinced that I never liked you back then?”

Matsumoto’s eyes narrow at him before he answers. “I wasn’t exactly the kind of kouhai anyone would be proud of. All the rumors you may have heard at the time, most of them were probably true.”

Sho looks at him now, making sure that he’s right in Matsumoto’s line of sight. “I heard a rumor that you had a quickie in the pantry with the temp from accounting.”

Matsumoto’s nose scrunches in disgust. “I never did it in the pantry.”

“Another said that you got totally wasted in that year’s Christmas party and you went home with two men and a woman from the sister company,” Sho tells him.

Matsumoto looks incredulous now, then he shakes his head. “I went home alone that night.”

“It has also reached me that you kept the remote of a vibrator in one of the drawers of your work desk,” Sho continues.

“I never used a sex toy while at work,” Matsumoto tells him.

“And that they found it after you left the company because you didn’t pack it with the rest of your stuff and left it inside the drawer,” Sho informs him.

“Who told you these things?” Matsumoto finally asks, frowning at him.

Sho draws back, leaning against the couch. “Many people who seemed to dislike you for a reason, as it’s becoming apparent now.” He tilts his head. “Not all of them are true, then. Most of them aren’t, as I’m finding out now.”

“Still doesn’t change the fact that it did influence a bit of your perception about me at the time, didn’t it,” Matsumoto says.

“That’s on me,” Sho acknowledges. “I shouldn’t have let those rumors affect how I perceived you. Apparently, I wasn’t that good at hiding my reservations toward you since until now you’re totally convinced that I hated you back then.” Sho meets his eyes. “I didn’t. I just...kept my distance.”

“A part of me thinks you wrote the recommendation letter just to be completely done with me,” Matsumoto admits. “Is that wrong?”

“I didn’t hate you, Matsujun,” Sho says with a sigh. “If I did, I wouldn’t have written that letter for you at all. It was the only time you went directly to me to ask for something. I couldn’t turn you down no matter what I heard about you.”

He sees Matsumoto pause, and he scoots closer, shortening the distance between them.

“You never asked for my help before that,” Sho says. “You would ask anyone else but not me. And any mistakes in your report at the time were quickly remedied by the people around you, that by the time the report made it to my desk, there was hardly anything to fuss about.” At the look Matsumoto gives him, he nods. “I know I was fussy back then. I was really bad at managing stress when we first met.”

To his surprise, Matsumoto laughs. “You were.”

“But I would have helped you if you asked,” Sho insists. “How many times did we run into one another by the photocopying machine? And how many times did you end up using the faulty one because you were giving way to me?” He peers at Matsumoto’s face, at the imperfections lining his cheeks that only make him more appealing in Sho’s eyes. “How many deadlines did you almost miss because you tried to figure it out yourself instead of just asking me?”

“I didn’t want to take any more of your time back then, Sho-san,” Matsumoto admits quietly, almost shyly. In a way, it feels like Sho’s speaking to the same kouhai he’s heard so many salacious rumors about. “I...the last thing I wanted you to think of me was that I was a nuisance.”

Matsumoto always acted differently around him back then. He’d casually flirt back with people, laugh and exchange inappropriate jokes with them, but never with Sho.

Sho stills as he remembers this, and Matsumoto simply nods, a small, sad smile on his lips.

“That's why I never asked,” Matsumoto tells him, “for your help, I mean. I knew you would give it; you were the kind of senpai I admired, you know? You’d never refuse anyone who needed your help, no matter how much they tried your patience. But I didn’t want you to think of me as someone whose hand you had to hold all the time, someone who just slept around and worked too little, and never hard enough.”

“I never thought of you that way,” Sho tells him sincerely.

“I didn’t know you didn’t back then,” Matsumoto points out, exhaling. “Everyone thought of me that way, anyway. But for some reason, I don’t know. I guess I wanted you to think differently of me. But then you told me about these rumors the others spread about me, and well. There was no way for me to cleanse my name, was there? Seeing as we hardly spoke.”

Sho could remember himself actively avoiding Matsumoto after the rumors about the man grew to the point he could no longer be bothered to discern which ones were true and which ones weren’t. He had work to do, and he had to get it done, so he did.

“Do you hate me for it?” Sho finds himself asking.

He feels nothing at present. He’s not dreading the answer; he thinks he can accept it if Matsumoto answers the affirmative. He wasn’t the kind of senpai that anyone would’ve held in high regard.

Matsumoto looks puzzled, a crease forming between his brows.

“Why would I hate you?” he asks Sho, like it’s the most impossible thing.

“Because I ignored you,” Sho admits, because it was the truth. “I ignored you because the people around me told me what kind of person you were, and instead of getting to know you myself, I believed them. I ignored you mostly after the Christmas party of that year.”

Sho can still recall that night vividly; he chose to be responsible at the time and didn’t partake in as much alcohol as he would’ve liked. He opted to drink in moderation and to babysit some of his wayward kouhais, and when that exhausted him as the night went on, he went out for a smoke.

And after lighting his first cigarette, he remembers hearing giggling followed by stumbling, a series of footsteps from strangers in the dark that didn’t see him. Sho didn’t mean to look, but when the figures started making out, he knew it was time for him to leave.

Until he heard someone call out Matsumoto’s name, said so breathlessly and passionately, which made him look.

And there they were at the time, his kouhai with the arresting profile, with a lapful of another employee from the Human Resources Department. Sho walked away then, stubbing his cigarette before tossing it in the trash bin, and never looked back.

That didn’t mean he forgot, because he didn’t. Now that he knows that kouhai is the same Matsumoto Jun, he finds himself sometimes plagued by the memories of that night, of Matsumoto kissing someone else.

He’s tried so hard to not remember it, to not think of it now that they’re in this arrangement, but still. Even gods have their limits. Sho gets overwhelmed at times, and when he feels sufficiently guilty enough for wanting more despite knowing nothing between them is true, the memories come rushing back.

“You were the one smoking in the veranda,” Matsumoto concludes, and Sho has to give it to him, he’s sharp. “I went home alone that night, I’ll have you know. But that’s not the word that reached you.”

“It wasn’t that hard to believe,” Sho tells him, apologetic. “It certainly influenced my perception of you since then, and I kept my distance. What you do in your private time is not my business, after all.” Then he pauses, thinks. And he decides to ask anyway, because he’s done making himself look like he never cared and can no longer help himself. “Did you even like them?”

Matsumoto throws him a sideway glance, and Sho sighs.

“That girl from HR,” he elaborates.

“Are you asking out of concern for them or—?”

Sho shuts his eyes and goes with the truth. “I—don’t know why I’m asking.”

Maybe it’s because the image has been long burned in his mind that when he managed to forget about Matsumoto Jun’s existence, he forgot about it as well. But with the man’s return in his life, he now remembers, and he can’t forget. Especially now that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny his attraction to Matsumoto the longer they spend time together.

Or maybe, just maybe—and this is the possibility that Sho is afraid of admitting, even to himself—he’s nothing different from the majority of the company employees at the time and in his own way, he also fancied his kouhai.

Sho didn’t even know his preferences at the time. But the longer he stays with Matsumoto, the more he begins to understand himself and his actions when they were still alive.

Matsumoto might be the one who left, but he certainly wasn’t the first to run away.

“I don’t even remember what they look like now,” Matsumoto says suddenly, and Sho isn’t even surprised by it. It was a long time ago, after all. “But I remember why I came with them to that veranda.”

Matsumoto meets his gaze once, then he turns to the TV without really seeing. “I didn’t know you were there, Sho-san. But they did. Because after you left, they told me who it was that just saw us.”

Sho bristles, looking away in embarrassment. But Matsumoto isn’t done speaking.

“They took one look at me,” Matsumoto says, his voice almost a whisper now, “and they said I could pretend.”

“Pretend?” Sho echoes.

“Pretend that they were you, they said,” Matsumoto admits, the tremble in his voice making Sho’s heart stop. “And it worked. For a while, at least.”

Sho’s breath catches, just as Matsumoto hangs his head.

“I don’t hate you,” Matsumoto says quietly, like it’s a secret and there’s someone else who can hear them. “I never did.”

The silence that stretches between them doesn’t last long, but it lingers. It lingers until Matsumoto straightens, head still hanging low as he offers, sincere and heartfelt, “If you want to return to the Plain of High Heaven, I’ll understand. If you want to send me back, tell me right away. I’ll inform Nino at once and we’ll return.”

Sho looks at him, at this once-confident man who hit all the targets for him earlier, the one who protected him from the malevolent spirits that night, the one who’s always minding Sho’s comfort and disguising his concern for Sho’s wellbeing with a quirk of an eyebrow or a sigh.

And even before all of that, Sho looks and sees who he was underneath the godly exterior disguising as a mortal: that kouhai he ignored out of fear, someone who may have always admired him from afar and chose to give up without trying because Sho at the time couldn’t get over himself.

Sho reaches out before he can question himself further, fingers finding the curve of Matsumoto’s jaw and angling it towards him so that their eyes will meet.

Even sadness sitting in Matsumoto Jun’s eyes makes him look beautiful.

“Did you pretend that they were all me?” he asks, and he sees how Matsumoto panics: his eyes widen, his fear right on the surface for Sho to see, his expression full of embarrassment and shame.

He tries to break free, but Sho keeps him in place. Holds him there and waits.

Sho watches his bottom lip tremble as he breathes out a shaky yes.

“All those times? With all those people?” Sho clarifies, and Matsumoto lets out a breath, sounding defeated.

“Yes,” he whispers. He quakes in Sho’s hold, like if Sho releases him, he’ll break and shatter to pieces.

Sho applies pressure on his fingers, and Matsumoto’s eyes fly open. He looks so terrified, and Sho wants to reassure him that there’s no place for it. That it’s all right and they both have nothing to fear.

“You don’t have to pretend anymore,” he breathes between them, his other hand reaching up to cup Matsumoto’s face, thumbs stroking prominent cheekbones. “I’m here.”

Then Sho closes his eyes and leans in, letting himself experience the feeling of kissing Matsumoto Jun for the first time.


Part III