The sensational rumor—“Michael knelt down and begged Lucifer to make him his Favored Angel, only to be refused”—spread like wildfire throughout Heaven. Within a day, it had echoed through every corridor and alleyway, becoming the hottest scandal over tea and dinner.
Of course, beyond those simply savoring the gossip, a few elders connected to my father looked on me with bitter disappointment, like I was some fool beyond redemption.
Never had I imagined that what I’d done would spark such a storm. Regret and humiliation gnawed at me from the inside out. I shut myself away, refusing to leave the house. Even in the bath, the weight of it crushed my chest until I sank my entire head underwater, only surfacing again when I was on the verge of drowning.
After being rejected like that, I no longer had the courage to see Lucifer again.
I moved to a small village in the Sixth Heaven, where the villagers whispered of old tales about Shima and Sancta Faylia.
Every now and then, I’d catch glimpses of Lucifer in the newspapers, clashing with God. The conflict between them was worsening. His followers had even begun whispering about rebellion.
Time flowed like the Solor River. In the blink of an eye, I had lived through two thousand Berduth.
At midnight on September 29th, Berduth 8731, year 5442, I spent my birthday alone in that quiet village.
I had originally planned to treat some classmates to lunch the next day. But while washing my face, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror—and froze.
My long red hair, once tied behind me, was gone. In its place were short, tousled brown curls. My skin had dulled. My features were far more ordinary than before. Apart from the sea-blue eyes, I was nearly unrecognizable even to myself.
Before Lucifer kicked me out, I had been quite popular at school.
I still remembered one day in Heavenly Language class, when our teacher explained the origin of a certain old expression. He said that in the age of primordial chaos, the earliest divine race, all Seraphim, were without gender. The word for “young man” back then included both boys and girls. It originally came from the word for “beauty,” because angels in their youth were considered most beautiful. Later, in the era of the Divine Messengers, a new term for “young lady” was coined, and “young man” came to refer solely to males. But because the pronunciation still resembled “beauty,” divine youth were always associated with being breathtakingly lovely.
At that moment, all the girls in class turned their heads toward me.
The teacher randomly called on one inattentive girl and asked her to repeat what he’d said.
She misheard the word for “young man” and blurted out, “Beauty? That’s Michael, made of red and white rose petals.”
It was a large lecture with hundreds of students. The class burst into laughter so loud that students from other classes came to see what had happened.
One rumor led to another. Before long, I wasn’t just popular. I had become the very embodiment of “a beautiful boy.”
And because my way of pursuing Lucifer had been so tragically foolish, that phrase—“Michael of red and white roses”—was immortalized in Heaven’s literature and poetry. Writers used it as shorthand for dazzling but witless youth.
Examples include: “He was a boy of dazzling beauty and no substance, a Michael of red and white roses,” or “With that ugly face of yours, how could you even compare to this Michael before me?”
So, when my signature red hair disappeared, when I lost my former looks, when even my Seraph wings reduced to just two, I faded overnight into a forgettable divine boy. The spotlight vanished.
I thought back to something Raphael once said. Maybe two thousand Berduth was exactly the age I’d reach maturity. Perhaps the abilities I was meant to awaken had been sealed all this time, and even my appearance had changed.
That suspicion was confirmed that very evening.
Because I saw someone even harder to meet than Lucifer himself.
The sun had sunk. Thick red clouds dragged low across the sky, drifting past Jerusalem’s cathedral spires. A unicorn leapt high overhead, slicing the crimson firmament like tearing silk. Wings, angelic, bestial, flashed through cloud gaps, then vanished into a sky the blue of a robin’s egg as dusk fell.
I sat by the water, alone, and looked up at the man standing against the light. My foot, which had been tapping the prow of an upturned boat, paused midair.
“You… are you… Father God?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he knelt down before me.
His long silver hair scattered like snow across the ground. His eyes were also a hollow and pure silver.
“Michael,” he asked, “are you happy now?”
I froze. Then lowered my head and bit my lip, shaking it firmly.
He brushed aside a tall wildflower beside him, and tapped a nearby rock, speaking softly.
“Tell me, between this flower and this rock, which would you take?”
“The flower, of course.”
He nodded. “Yes. This flower doesn’t have the roots of a tree. The wind or rain could destroy it easily. And even if nothing tears it down, its beauty, its vibrance, those things make it dangerously fragile.”
I nodded vaguely, not quite understanding.
He studied the flower, then looked back at me.
“That’s the law of all living things. Anything standing high without solid roots is vulnerable. Michael, if you feel pain, it means you’re like that too. Born too high, yet never taught how to protect yourself. You need to become stronger. Build roots. Only then are you worthy of your own life.”
“Yes, yes – You really are incredible, Father God. You know everything…”
“No. You knew all of this first. You just chose to forget.”
“Huh?”
“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter now. Just don’t let anyone hurt you again. The ones who make you drop your guard… those are the ones you must beware.”
I nodded, thinking a bit, then suddenly lit up.
“I—I must sound crazy, but this is the first time I’ve ever spoken with the highest being in all of Heaven. Are you really the Father? The Creator of our entire universe? I always thought the silver-haired figure in the Sanctum was just a simulation—that the real God had no consciousness. But here you are, talking to me like… like a real elder. It feels unreal…”
“The Creator truly has no consciousness. God and the universe are one.”
“But… you don’t seem unconscious at all.”
“Of course not. I have consciousness, because I am the Lord.”
Then I remembered something a teacher once said, that God exists as three persons. The Creator Himself isn’t a being of emotion, but the eternal presence that is the universe itself.
“So… the God on the Throne really doesn’t have thoughts or feelings?”
“…Mm.” He was silent for a moment. “Maybe He once did.”
Losing my seraph wings, along with the dramatic change in appearance, meant I could no longer remain at my old school. I was forced to leave and settle in the world of the lower angels.
I spent thirty or forty years in First Heaven, before moving again, this time to Parnor. I worked in a bustling café as a waiter, saving up bit by bit, living a modest life. Once I had enough, I’d move to another city for a few years. Somehow, I discovered that this kind of simple life… was actually quite peaceful.
A hundred years later, I sat for the Power-class exams and passed with ease.
When the Seraphim came to Jerusalem to recruit Powers to serve as guards at the borders of the Demon Realm, I, unfortunately or fortunately, was selected. I wasn’t allowed to refuse.
Among the new recruits, I met a boy named Caro. He looked around my age, but in truth, I was likely hundreds, maybe thousands, of times older than him.
Both our parents had been killed by the demon race, so our hatred for them ran deep. My attitude when dealing with demons was often harsh, and Caro scolded me many times for it, telling me a person should always leave themselves a way out, and not burn every bridge.
With Caro, I learned a lot of new things. But I also picked up some of his less elegant habits… like leaving the house with my bedhead.
Over the years, I dated two girlfriends. Neither relationship lasted long.
The first was Anna, a Principality, one level below me. We met at a tavern. I courted her for about two weeks before she suddenly asked me to meet her at the central fountain in Jerusalem.
All my buddies were excited, saying it meant she was ready to say yes, that I should bring flowers and be prepared.
Only Caro rolled his eyes at it all. He never liked women to begin with.
I didn’t quite believe love would come so easily. Still dazed, I brought a fresh bouquet of lilies to the fountain.
She wore a white dress that day; its pleated fabric flowed from a high-waisted belt. Her golden hair was so bright it seemed to glow. Among the group of girls she sat with, she was the prettiest.
I walked up with the bouquet behind my back, pulled it out quickly, and said the line I’d rehearsed:
“I like you. Will you be my girlfriend?”
She leapt down from the fountain, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me wildly.
We were together for just over half a year. I was certain I had feelings for her. We celebrated my birthday together once, and when I held her in my arms, it felt like holding family. I even considered proposing.
But one thing still made me feel guilty.
On the very first day we got together, when she kissed me so wildly by the fountain, I couldn’t stop staring past her, at the towering statue of Lucifer that rose above all the buildings.
Still, those six months were exhausting.
She had dropped out of school early, never held a job, and spent her days either lounging at home or shopping. Even working two jobs, I couldn’t keep up with her spending. When I added a third, we barely saw each other. There was no time for affection, even less for love.
Maybe I was too busy to notice. It wasn’t until six months later that I discovered she’d been cheating—not on me, but with me. I was the third party.
More than a decade passed after that breakup before I dated again. My second girlfriend was also a Power, though by those standards, she was considered an “older woman.”
Her family constantly pressured her to marry, but she was sharp, ambitious, and lacked those conventionally “softer” feminine qualities. Her mind was like a machine, cold, efficient, logical. She ignored all attempts to push her into marriage.
Our relationship was colder than an iceberg’s shadow. I often felt like I was the one being kept: pampered, useless, expected only to smile and keep her happy.
Eventually, her extraordinary ability earned her a promotion to Dominion. She moved to Shima and offered to take me with her, but when I declined, she never brought it up again.
We tried a long-distance relationship for some time, through letters, holiday visits, the usual rituals, but even those faded. Slowly, the contact disappeared altogether.
From both failed relationships, I learned many things. Especially the second, because it made me understand how much class difference could doom a couple.
And more than that, I began to see the truth: what I had once felt for Lucifer, my childhood obsession, was perhaps just that. Obsession. Not even love.
Back then, I’d gone so crazy because it was my first time experiencing it.
After you’ve been through it more times… love becomes something you no longer chase with such desperation.
Following the second breakup, I decided to rest. I stopped pursuing romantic relationships altogether.
Then, in early year 6014, on the way to the Demon Realm with a group of fellow Powers, I had the extreme misfortune of bumping into my first girlfriend, Anna, outside the Gates of Heaven. She was there helping her boyfriend mend his wings.
I tried to slip past her and fly away, but she shouted behind me: “Isar? That’s you, isn’t it?!”
At the same time, one of my buddies elbowed me, wearing a grin that said, “This is gonna be good.”
I turned around reluctantly, then symbolically hovered a little toward her, and managed: “Ah, Anna. What’s up?”
“I…” Her eyes swam with guilt. There were even tears glimmering in them. “My husband and I… we’ve always felt so sorry about what happened to you.”
I blinked, then felt an unexpected weight in my chest.
“Married? Ah. Congratulations.”
“If he hadn’t cheated on me with another girl back then, I wouldn’t have hurt you the way I did… You must have felt awful, right…” She glared at her muscular boyfriend and twisted his arm, “This is all your fault! All your fault!”
“No worries, really. I didn’t take it to heart.”
That’s what I said. But the suffocating bitterness I felt had nowhere to go.
Maybe… maybe I really had loved her, even if just a little. Otherwise, why would seeing them again make me feel this way?
“Isar, you have to let us make it up to you. Please.”
“Really, there’s no need. I’m fine, honestly…”
I kept my voice polite, not wanting them to see how much it still bothered me, to see me as a petty man with no dignity.
But halfway through my sentence, I saw them.
A host of angels approaching from above, vast and deliberate. My hand froze mid-air.
The golden banners of Sancta Faylia whipped in the wind atop the Gates of Heaven. The endless mists of the First Heaven blanketed the world like hazy ink, blotting out memory, stretching across a lifetime.
Beneath the towering pillars, the Seraphim shook golden feathers loose upon the ground.
The Commander of the Archangels had arrived with the Chancellor of Heaven, stopping just before the battle angels. They stood less than five meters away from me.
The whole world widened into empty silence. The air outside the Gates had never felt so thin.
Anna and her boyfriend were still talking, but I heard none of it. Just the sight of one particular silhouette made it hard to breathe.
I thought he’d be just like anyone else. I thought I’d already forgotten him. I thought I’d grown up.
But no. Not at all.
That naïve, foolish adoration from my youth hadn’t died. It had rotted, decayed, seeped into my blood, skin, marrow, lurking quietly through all my affairs, waiting until I let my guard down to flare up again.
Now, every inch of me was filled with a suffocating pain I couldn’t express.
So this was what it meant, I thought, that the final form of loving someone… was despair.
Noticing my strange gaze, Anna finally turned around, and gasped.
“That’s… that’s His Highness Lucifer and Lord Metatron!”
Metatron was dressed with scholarly flair that day, wearing his glasses. When his gaze swept across me, he pushed them up and remarked,
“Your Highness Lucifer, there’s a child standing over there who looks exactly like a Michael of red and white roses.”
Lucifer gave me a glance, then said calmly, “Since when did your aesthetics become so…”
He didn’t finish.
Because his eyes, too, had locked onto my face.
My heart nearly stopped.
He—he couldn’t have recognized me… could he?
“You’re looking at the same thing I am, aren’t you?” Metatron continued. “Those big, deep blue eyes, like an endless ocean. Aha.”
And then, I saw Lucifer descend the steps of the Gates of Heaven… walking straight toward me.
He was tall. Even as I floated in the air, we were eye to eye.
He narrowed his eyes slightly and said softly,
“What’s your name?”
“Lord Lucifer… I’m called Isar.”
I answered carefully.
I hoped, deep down, that he’d recognize me. And at the same time, I was terrified he would.
But his gaze remained calm. His expression, unmoved.
“Isar. I once knew someone by that name too.”
“…Oh.”
I was too nervous. My eyes darted everywhere. I didn’t know how to continue.
He was more composed than anyone; he didn’t even say goodbye and just turned and rejoined the seraphim, leading them eastward across the First Heaven.
I don’t remember how I made it home.
Only that I collapsed onto my bed, buried my face in the pillow, and didn’t move for hours. Didn’t speak. The part of the pillow over my eyes was soaked through.
The next morning, I woke in bed and caught sight of myself in the mirror: two swollen eyes like walnut shells staring back. The sight made me want to smash the mirror right then and there.
I had told myself—what, hundreds of times?—not to let Lucifer affect me again. After all he had done. After he shattered my dignity and trampled on my pride. If I so much as thought about him again, I told myself, then I was pathetic, no, worse, despicable.
And yet, deep down I knew: that one brief encounter… would haunt me again for a long, long time.
After washing up, I walked down the staircase of the shared apartment.
The rent here was dirt cheap, which meant the building was as run-down as they came: cracked porcelain with streaks of blue-green mold piled in the corners; spiderwebs strung between rafters and walls; rats had chewed holes through abandoned chairs. Every morning without fail, I’d hear the destitute couple upstairs shouting and throwing things in yet another fight.
Even so, it had one redeeming beauty: the front faced the bustling, ever-vivid Jerusalem; the back opened onto the wilderness beyond the city, hills blanketed with swaths of crimson heather.
Those brilliant red flowers refused to be confined to the grassy slopes; they’d crept up to our window and even twined around the rusted candelabras outside. After the night’s heavy rain, they looked brighter than ever. Each blossom blazed like a delicate red eye, staring up at me from the earth below. The flowers filled my view with vivid carmine, transforming the brand-new morning into a radiant landscape.
I walked away from the heather, looking toward the city’s lively heart.
Wind surged from the hills like waves crashing against a harbor wall.
Through the narrow, dim corridor, I saw the old man who lived downstairs fumbling with a ring of keys, unlocking the iron gate. In the stillness, even the sound of his nervous breathing seemed unnaturally loud.
Then I saw it.
He bowed in that formal, reverent way only shown to higher-ranking angels. Deep and slow.
“Yes, Isar. That blue-eyed boy who’s always coming and going. He lives here,” the old man said, then turned to point directly at me. “He’s just up there. Your Highness can go straight in to find him.”
The figure outside extended a hand toward the old man. Gloved in white, with a silver chain circling the wrist.
A Throne stepped forward to hand over a pouch brimming with gold coins, then retreated behind the white-gloved figure.
The old man bowed again, then hobbled out with his cane.
I recognized that silver bracelet instantly and turned so nervous that I stopped dead.
Lucifer. What was he doing here?
What did he want from me?
He didn’t come all this way just to kick me again, did he? That’d just be too hilarious, wouldn’t it? Should I escape out the back before I got traumatized again? But let’s be honest, if the Archangel wanted to catch someone, there was nowhere for me to run. If he really came to kick me, I should actually just lie down and pick a position that wouldn’t bruise his foot, so that he could kick me more comfortably.
Before I could think further, a tall, commanding figure stepped into view.
To avoid the spiderwebs and broken eaves, he bent his noble head slightly and walked all the way up to me.
Before he got close, I lost my composure and blurted out,
“L-Lord Lucifer…”
“Do you recall our encounter yesterday?”
He asked the question in that elegant, emotionless tone, like he was showing off his own restraint.
Cold, yes. Arrogant, too. But strangely not forced.
“Of course I remember…”
I said, but my gaze wasn’t exactly warm.
After what he did to me all those Berduth ago, I still hadn’t forgiven him.
Which is probably why, despite standing in front of him, my body bristled with thorns.
“May I ask what brings Your Highness here?”
“What’s your first impression of me?”
The question came out of nowhere.
He clearly didn’t know I was Michael.
I tried to recall the very first time I’d ever seen him. I was probably still a baby back then so how could I remember? But then again, my impression of him had never really changed throughout my life.
“Noble, graceful, the strongest and most beautiful of the divine race, a figure of absolute power… Something like that.”
But really, all of that was the surface.
There was something else about him.
With most beautiful people, I could remember their features in vivid detail: their hair, eyes, curves, scent, voice, gestures, the way they moved. If I thought about them later, those specific impressions would return like a photograph.
But with Lucifer, it was never about his face or his voice.
When it came to him, the first thing I remembered was the feeling he left behind, the memory of his presence. That presence… that was what drove me to do so many foolish things.
“So you have a favorable impression of me.”
His words followed with calm precision.
That familiar tightness in my chest returned without warning.
I folded my arms and frowned, defensive again.
“Whether I do or not shouldn’t be very important to Your Highness, should it?”
“What if I told you I want you to be my Favored Angel?”
“…What?”
He ignored my confusion, standing in shadow, simply waiting.
I froze for a full ten seconds. My swollen eyes stared at him.
“Your Highness, are you serious right now? You think because I’m low-ranked you can just play with me however you like? That’s—! That’s awful!”
“I’m not joking.”
“Then why would you say something like that?!”
“Because I have feelings for you.”
His response came quick and clean.
This had to be a prank. When I looked my best and chased after him shamelessly, he ignored me. Now that I looked like this, he suddenly have feelings for me?
My brain turned to mush. My limbs didn’t know where to go.
“But—but… just like that? I can be your Favored Angel?”
He laughed. Softly. Almost indulgently, the warm patience of a grown up toward a rash, overeager youth.
“What else did you think?”
“I don’t know. But this feels way too… easy.”
“So, that means you’re willing?”
Turns out all that rage I’d carried was because he didn’t look back at me. All that “I’ll never forgive him” was just the pain of being unloved.
And dignity? That armor I wrapped around myself was only there because I’d been cast aside.
When he looked at me like this, with such gentle eyes, dignity felt meaningless.
“…Mm!” I nodded hard, so moved that tears spilled down again.
He smiled and ran a hand through my hair, speaking in a tone he had never used with me before, almost fond:
“I’ve made a new home in Shima. Come live with me.”
“Okay!”
“Want to go see it now?”
“Yes!”
And so, we left the corridor, one after the other.
Outside, Jerusalem was still wrapped in morning fog. The street before our building was empty, but a few blocks away, I could hear boys shouting before school. Their voices carried softly through the mist.
The blue streetlamps blinked in the damp air, casting shifting shadows across rows of glass windows.
As sunlight broke through the clouds, Lucifer turned to me with a faint smile.
“What happened to your eyes?”
“Ah—don’t look!” I flailed, covering my face. “I drank too much water last night!”
“So silly.” He leaned down slightly, peering at me. “But Metatron wasn’t wrong. You are beautiful.”
Suddenly I thought of that old phrase—”Michael of red and white roses” and couldn’t help but laugh.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, just… a funny old saying.” I dropped my hands from my eyes and shrugged. “Never mind. No point hiding them now, you’ve already seen.”
When Lucifer smiled at me again, my heart, like a greedy little wishing jar, secretly tucked away a new hope:
If only… the one he liked wasn’t Isar, of Power, but my true self.
But I would never have guessed.
That the most impossible thing in the world was for Lucifer to fall for Michael.
At that moment, my eyes held only one figure: the Archangel walking ahead of me.
With such simple, earnest hopes, I was completely unlike the self I would become years later.
And in all the years to come, every time I thought back to that morning, I could almost see him, walking deeper and deeper into the mist. That reckless, headstrong version of myself, all thorns and defiance. That lonely, yet fearless, me of my youth.
Author: Tav Tav
Translating
The Right Wing of God, the one seated at the right hand of the Most High.
