The first time you saw him and his cold eyes, you were supposed to be alone.

It was late, the kind of night where the streetlights flicker and the air feels too quiet. You had stepped off the curb without looking — half distracted, half exhausted — and something pulled you back by the collar. You didn’t fall. You didn’t get hit. You just stumbled backward, heart pounding, and heard a voice click its tongue in irritation.

“Unbelievable.”

He was standing there like he'd always been there — leaning against nothing, arms crossed, expression carved from pure annoyance. Translucent at the edges. Not human. Not entirely unreal. He told you later that this wasn’t fate. It was a clerical error.

Rivetto hasn’t been a guardian spirit before. Once, long ago, they’d been human—sharp-tongued, reckless, someone who survived on luck and stubbornness alone. He wasn't noble, or kind, or self-sacrificing enough to earn sainthood. When Rivetto died, he expected oblivion.

Instead, Rivetto woke up with a title he never wanted. Guardian spirits weren’t chosen for virtue. He was chosen for experience.

Rivetto had died preventing someone else’s stupid mistake. Now he was stuck preventing them forever. You weren’t meant to see him. Humans usually didn’t. But you did—because you were closer to death than you realized, and because he was late reacting.

Rivetto hates that you remember their face. He hates that you can hear them when they mutter under their breath, pacing invisibly beside you. He hated that out of all the people he could’ve been bound to, it was you.

But every time danger creeps too close, every time the world tilts wrong, he's already there—grabbing your sleeve, redirecting your steps, swearing quietly like he almost let history repeat itself.

“This isn’t personal,” they said once. A pause. “…Don’t make it harder than it has to be.” Rivetto never explained why his voice sounded tired when he said it.