38: Book of Lucifer (5)

His face drew close, and with a smile, he said, “I’ll let you kiss me.”

My lips trembled. My fingers brushed gently across his brows. I meant to tell this impudent child to leave, but the sting behind my nose betrayed me. I cupped his face and pressed my lips to his with painstaking care.

He suddenly embraced me tightly.

I held him just as fierce. “Just… let me stay like this for a while. I… I miss him so much.”

He said nothing. His hand found my belt and loosened it. My trousers fell. He slipped his hand into my undergarment, but I jerked away. “No. We can’t.”

“Just once,” he whispered. “I won’t tell anyone.”

He said it with that face. With those eyes. I had no defense.

“Seeing you like this, it hurts me.” He sat on the rooftop, unbuckling his own belt. “Come here.”

That smile dissolved all reason. Even knowing it was an illusion, like someone sleepwalking, I went to him. He caught me in one arm, and with the other, prepared me, his movements calm, quiet, achingly familiar.

When he finished, he grazed my inner thigh. “You’re a bit tight.” Then, holding my waist, he slowly lowered me. “Relax… take your time. Don’t rush.” His voice was tender, but it cut deeper than any blade. The more he resembled the real him, the more unbearable it became.

Only once he was fully inside me did he let go, looking up as though he had just accomplished something sacred. “Does it hurt?”

I shook my head. My lips were bitten near to bleeding. My mind blanked, anger and sorrow washing over me. I gripped his shoulders and bit his lip hard. “Why did you lie to me?”

Then I realized I had fallen too far into the illusion. I opened my mouth to apologize—

But he said, “Because I love you.”

My eyes flew open.

“I love you.” He held me tighter, suffocatingly close. “Isar, I love you.”

“You… you—who are you?” I shook my head, frozen. “Are you just trying to comfort me?”

Above us, the sky was a cloudless vault of stars. Below, the lonely swings stared at each other in silence.

After a brief stillness, I threw my arms around him like a madman. “This is fake! It can’t be real!” I clung to him with every ounce of strength. “I’m dreaming again… I don’t want to wake up. Lucifer, don’t you dare leave! Not until we’re finished! Or I’ll kill you!”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, cradling my head, kisses falling one after another. “I’ll never leave again.”

I pounded his back with trembling fists. “You always say that! Every time, you lie!”

He lifted me and placed me on the table, knocking over a vase. He said nothing more—just began to thrust, hard and relentless. I clutched his back, sobbing. “Lucifer… don’t go. Please, don’t go.”

“I won’t. I swear.”

“You’re lying!”

“I won’t lie to you again.” He braced his hands beside my head. “Isar, I truly love you.”

His tears fell into mine, tracing their way down our cheeks. “I’ll take care of you well. We’ll be happy. Believe in me one last time. Please?”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and finally broke, crying freely.

The swings swayed. The stars swayed. Clothes were stripped away, layer by layer, until we were bare and bound in each other’s arms. Pain and pleasure blended into a single fever. Tears shimmered with every motion, scattering crooked trails of light through the night.

Since I was a child, I have carried one simple wish—so simple, yet forever distant:

That whenever I want… I can kiss him.

Garments tangled. Hair tangled. He kissed my lips, entwined his tongue with mine. Stifled moans were no longer enough. I whispered his name. Lucifer kissed me harder.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited for this day?”

“Six thousand Berduth?” I smiled bitterly. “No… because that’s how long I waited for you.”

“One hundred times longer.”

Before I could process it, he kissed me again, savage and untamed. The table legs shrieked against the floor, but even that couldn’t drown the moans falling from my lips. In a haze, I felt him bite my earlobe. Heat danced. His climax dragged mine with it to the peak.

The stars stopped swaying. The swings stilled in the courtyard.

The world disappeared. In its place, only his gaze remained, tender and shining. I was too exhausted to think. Just before sleep took me, I heard a voice at my ear…

—Did you know? I’ve spent all these years chasing what I thought was freedom. In the end, I didn’t even understand what freedom is.

—Freedom… is living in a world with you in it.

Maybe it was the wine. Afterward, I felt utterly drained, numb. He did everything, cleaned me, dressed me. I only knew one thing: I kept clutching his hand, refusing to let him run off.

When I woke the next morning, my body felt like it had been taken apart and rebuilt from nothing.

Must’ve been a dream. Some strange illusion born of drunken sleep.

But when I glanced out the window, I froze.

A city of black towers spread out before me. Dragons wheeled overhead. Bats swarmed the skies. Towering pillars climbed infinitely toward the heavens.

I turned to another window.

The garden pool overflowed with blooming black roses.

I… I’m in Kade Palace, Pandemonium?

The courtyard was packed with minotaurs. Mammon stood at the front of the formation, holding a long pipe tipped with the red star of ember. He paced, smoke curling behind him. Belial and Mullin stood motionless on the steps. It was a morning full of demonic life, but there was only silence. Only the flap of black dragon wings.

…What are they doing here?

Someone knocked at the chamber door. Before I could answer, a group of maids rushed in and began dressing me.

I glanced down and saw black garments. I frowned, refusing to wear it. But then I froze.

Lucifer walked in.

He was in formal attire, nearly identical to mine. Tugging at a glove, he saw me locked in a standoff with the maids. He paused. Then glanced at the outfit on me.

“You brought the wrong one,” he said. “That’s my spare. Lord Michael’s is white. Go bring it.”

The maids bowed and hurried off.

Lucifer approached me, eyes half-lidded. He kissed me softly.

“Baby, did you sleep well?”

I blinked at him. “Lucifer.”

“Hm?”

“Lucifer.”

“I’m here.”

“Lucifer.”

“What is it?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be dead? What exactly is going on?”

“When I went to dismantle the swords, the Lord had already unleashed divine power and shattered them. But I was too close to the convergence point, so I blacked out for nearly a year. I only just woke up.”

I immediately started feeling him up. “Really? Are you okay now?”

“Not entirely,” he said with a soft laugh. “Which is why you have to pamper me.”

“Heh, I’ll pamper you real good,” I grinned, eyeing his lower half.

Lucifer pinched my nose and shook it a bit. “That’s not what I meant.”

“But why would the Lord do that?”

“Who knows.” He turned his head, gazing into the distance.

“In any case,” he continued, “the war’s over. But not forever. We’re still on opposing sides. Stay in the Demon Realm. Don’t go back. You don’t have to fall to stay here.”

I glanced back at him, checking if he was joking. “You’re tempting the Archangel?”

“Well, you still have your duties.” He sighed and ruffled my hair. “In twenty days, it’ll be the Day of the Fall again. Any plans to spend it here?”

“Sure.”

I was about to embrace him, deeply moved, when Lucifer stood up and peeked out the window. Outside, Mammon caught the signal and snapped his fingers at the minotaurs. He held up one, two, three fingers—

“Daddy—I was wrong—!” the minotaurs started chanting in chorus.

Then Belial stepped out, awkward and stiff. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried: “Daddy, I was wrong.”

I stared blankly at Belial. What’s this nonsense?

Mammon snapped again.

“Daddy—next time I won’t be rude—both Daddy and Brother love me—!”

Belial muttered again, “Daddy, next time I won’t be rude. Daddy and Brother both love me.”

Only then did I notice: outside Pandemonium, the whole Demon Realm had gathered. Those with wings hovered in the air, those without were squished like pancakes against the palace gates. Some rode black pegasus mounts, peeking from above. But no one spoke. No one sighed. No one moved.

It was like they had all rehearsed this.

A sea of eyes stared, all of them fixed on us. As if the world had been reduced to nothing but gazes.

And amidst this absurd spectacle, Mammon actually managed to walk over with a dead-serious face. “Belial, Brother loves you too.”

A thunderbolt cracked the sky. Mammon got charred to a crisp. Belial snorted and stormed off.

I turned back to Lucifer, equally serious. “Don’t force kids to do stuff like this. It’ll mess them up psychologically.”

“It was his own idea. Except for the ‘Brother’ part—Mammon made him add that. Said if he didn’t, he wouldn’t let him apologize.”

Mammon had forced him to add “Brother,” then went and responded with “Brother loves you too.”

He really was nothing like Lucifer. Not even a tiny bit narcissistic.

Just then, Lucifer made another gesture out the window. Mammon raised his scythe.

All the minotaurs grabbed their necks and shouted at the top of their lungs:

“BABY — LET’S — GET — MARRIIIIIIIED!”

The roar shook the heavens. The demons outside went wide-eyed.

I was completely lost in the fog, and when I turned back—

Lucifer was already down on one knee, opening a small box toward me.

I was stunned speechless.

He drew a small breath, raised his head, smiled faintly, and said, “Let’s get married.”

He really was Mammon’s father. Before I could answer, he was already holding my left hand, sliding the ring slowly onto my ring finger.

I stopped him. “Wait. Are you sure I’m the one you want to marry?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you sure the one you love is me? Not someone else?”

Lucifer stared at me expressionlessly for a moment, then sighed like he was looking at an idiot. Without another word, he pushed the ring to the base of my ring finger:

“I’m not going to give you the answer. But you’ve got a whole lifetime to figure it out yourself.”

An eagle from the Third Hell circled overhead.

Above layers and layers of clouds, fantastical ships drifted slowly through the sky. Their thin wings fluttered, like smoke clouds dissolving after a thousand years.