“Ziel.”

  “Mrgh…” Ziel slowly blinked, letting his vision come into focus, “what is it?”

  The boy laughed, a bright, joyous sound that Ziel loved more than anything else, “I thought you would’ve been done napping by now. My leg fell asleep.”

  “Sorry,” Ziel said apologetically as he sat up.

  “It’s fine. Your ponytail is all messy from lying down though,” the boy noted as he carefully removed the rubber band from Ziel’s silken gold hair and started to put it back up again.

  “Mmm,” Ziel hummed, eyes’ half-lidded and still half asleep, giving the boy a small sound of confirmation, “thanks.”

  The boy tenderly pressed his lips to Ziel’s forehead, giving him a soft kiss, “It’s not that big of a deal.”

  Ziel turned to face the boy. A gentle gust of wind blew by, ruffling the boy’s deep crimson hair tied up in the same high ponytail that he had tied Ziel’s hair into.

  Red. What a truly beautiful color that was. Red was the color of the sky at dusk, bleeding in to blend with pale peach pinks and tangerine orange. Red was the color of sadly drooping roses, withering on the vine as you watched the petals slowly drift to the ground like fallen tears.

  Ziel swept the base of his thumb under the boy’s eyes. Red was the color of the boy’s eyes, the reflection of the sunset mixing in to give it a golden hue like autumn leaves. Red was the color of–

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  The dream shattered and then he was back to reality.

  Ziel stared at his hands. Blood. Blood stained his hands. Red was the color of blood, the drops of life that an enemy would shed in their last moments when cut at the neck. What was I doing?

  “You– you monster!” The girl in front of him– what was her name? Felice? Feli? Felicity? –growled as she lunged forward, a shining streak of tears staining her cheek, “that was the love of my life! And you killed her!”

  Right. This was what I was doing. Ziel glanced down at the corpse on the ground. She was the sadly drooping rose. More blood pooled around her body. More red. More of that beautiful color that Ziel loved so much. He smiled, “Love. Of course.”

  “You know nothing about love,” Felicity thrust her spear forward, “how could you? Someone as cold and unfeeling as you?”

  Ziel easily blocked Felicity’s strike with one of his sickles. “Oh that… that’s actually really funny. You’d make a great comedian,” he lightly chuckled to himself, how could he not? This girl, this strange girl who was now all alone actually thought she knew something about love? And also had the gall to tell him that he knew nothing of the topic, after everything he’d gone through?

  Ziel swung his other sickle up in an arc, causing Felicity to go stumbling back and fall, “You don’t know anything about me. Love? I know everything there is about it. I did everything for love. I fought, I bled, I hurt others, I hurt myself, I killed people, and it was all for love. I did it because I love him, and I want to see him again,” he brought his sickle up to Felicity’s neck. What was that boy’s name? Why could Ziel never remember that boy’s name? This world truly was a cruel place, “you are the one who knows nothing of love.”

  Felicity’s head fell to the ground. It was easy, like cutting through butter. Ziel had long grown numb to the guilt of killing another person because he did it for love. He had grown numb to that red color of blood because he bled for love and made others bleed because that was love. Red, the color of love. Red, the color of blood.