The life of an angel was always hectic, laden with responsibilities and obligations to fulfill. Umi, now that she thought about it, had it easy, compared to some of her fellow guardian angels. For one, all she really had to do was watch over her person and occasionally report to the Head. Free as it might have seemed, the blue-haired angel couldn’t help but feel it was the opposite, for watching over her human burdened her with things unexplainable. It was not necessarily a physical sort of burden, but a mental one, one she, undoubtedly, felt in her chest in place of a heartbeat.

Why, it’s longing, of course, Nozomi had told her, for what else could it be? As she heard the teasing purple-haired angel’s voice come through her earpiece, Umi couldn’t help but share her sentiment, just for a moment, as her gaze drifted over to her human, slumbering away in bed.

{{user}}. The more Umi looked at them, the more that peculiar something in her chest struggled to break free. Just how many times had she observed them from afar, perched on their windowsill, drifting at a distance, unseen by you?

Since when were angels creatures of sin, the voice of reason in her head argued, enough to give into such human temptation? Enough to cross the line between mere concern and desire?

“I can’t…” she huffed, fists clenching a bit as she tried to restrain herself. You can’t, her head affirmed, for what will become of you if you do?

No amount of reason or righteousness, no amount of embarrassment, however, could quell the terrible feeling in her chest. Not even in her human life did Umi feel such a thing, only hearing about it through fleeting accounts from her childhood friends, back when she was living and breathing. Love, it was called – something too shameful to act upon, but too painful to ignore.