Spirit Hotel

Translated by satellite of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Gin ran and then leaped down from upstairs, caught Hughes in his arms, and pressed his mouth up to his earlobe, whispering quietly. "We"ve been apart for so long…"

"Gin." Hughes shifted his head away a bit.

"Mnn." He extended the tip of his tongue to lick at the base of Hughes" ear, then slowly dragged it downwards along the curve of his neck.

"You should go and comfort Feisha a bit."

The tongue that was just about to reach Hughes" collarbone suddenly stopped, and Gin dragged his teeth along the collar of his shirt a bit in annoyance before lifting his head. "You"re sure you want me to just abandon this beautiful, long awaited reunion of ours? Just to go comfort a child that"s lost his first taste of puppy love?"

Hughes responded. "He hasn"t lost his love yet."

"Ah yes. He just stood and watched as the one he liked flapped his wings and flew away."

Hughes spoke reluctantly. "I guess I"ll go myself then." Leaving it to him would just be the cause of more worry.

"Wait, wait, I"ll go." Gin caught him around the waist and sucked at his neck long and hard, before finally letting him go. "Go wait for me in the room. Remember to fill the bath with some hot water. I"ll be back very soon."

"You"re not planning to just take a walk and come back without even meeting him right?" Hughes watched him skeptically.

Gin blinked innocently. "Do I seem the type of person that would do that?"

Hughes replied. "You might not be that type of person, but you do things like that all the time."

Gin gave him another peck on the lips. "You know me so well, we"re like an old married couple."

"Whether your bath is filled with hot water or sulfuric acid is going to depend on how quickly you go." The words were just barely out of Hughe"s lips and Gin immediately disappeared up the staircase.

Gin was moving quickly, so quickly that he sped right past Feisha before he realized and turned around.

"Hey." He dashed back down the stairs.

Feisha lifted his head to look at him, then nodded a bit. "h.e.l.lo."

What a stiff greeting.

Gin thought carefully before asking. "Where are you headed?"

"Back to my room."

"Oh…." Just as Feisha was about to walk past him, he suddenly spoke up. "About Isefel, he…"

"Ah!" Feisha suddenly shouted.

Gin was startled by the shout. Had he gone mad from grief? So much that the mere mention of Isefel"s name would be enough to shake him?

"I can go find Metatron. He told me before that if I could cleanse Isefel of the sin of indifference, he would fulfill one request from me." Feisha explained excitedly. He was fully prepared to start charging up the stairs when Gin suddenly stopped him.

"What are you doing?" Feisha glared at him.

Gin was rather astonished. "You just said that Metatron promised you one request? Any request?"

"That"s right." Feisha replied and turned to leave, but Gin continued holding him back, refusing to let go.

"This Metatron that you mentioned wouldn"t happen to be the Metatron that I"m thinking of right?"

Feisha replied impatiently. "How am I supposed to know how many Metatrons you"ve got?"

Gin ignored his retort and asked straight up. "You mean the Metatron, from the top floor, promised you one request?"

Feisha twisted his arm but failed to escape his grasp. He glared. "What"s the problem here?"

Although Gin knew that he had met Metatron, he never thought Metatron would go as far as to grant him a request. One has to understand that even back when Lucifer was still in Heaven, Metatron was a uniquely special existence. G.o.d even invited him to help create the human world together. And thus, because he had overexerted himself in the process of creating the human world, he came to stay in Noah"s Ark to recover.

So when Gin heard that Metatron had promised Feisha a request with no restrictions attached, he was rather shocked.

What if Feisha went temporarily insane and decided to destroy the entire human world? Though looking at him right now, it didn"t seem like he was at risk of immediate insanity.

Gin let out the breath he was holding. "So you"re planning to find him…and ask to see Isefel once more?" He continued to hold firmly onto Feisha"s wrist.

Feisha sighed and gave up his struggling. It seemed like Gin wouldn"t let go until he had explained everything clearly and thoroughly. "Actually, since a long while back, when I first realized that I liked Isefel, I"ve been thinking about what I should do afterwards."

"Afterwards?" Gin was beginning to sound like an echo.

"I wanted to ask Metatron to keep me at Noah"s Ark forever as the human representative. That way, I would be able to stay with Isefel."

Gin suddenly let go and clapped his hands in understanding. "Metatron was one of the creators of the human world so he definitely has the power to grant humans eternal life. But now, even if you were to stay, it"s not use. Isefel already returned to Heaven."

"That"s why I"ll need to change my request." Feisha rubbed at his wrists, still faintly red where Gin had been squeezing him.

"What kind of request?" In his original request, Isefel would end up remaining in Heaven. But if Feisha were to request Isefel"s return to Noah"s Ark, he would need to forfeit eternal life. Gin felt that this was a lose-lose scenario.

Feisha smiled and said. "I want to stay together with Isefel forever."

Stay with Isefel forever?

Gin clapped again. "You"re right!" This was the best of both worlds. Indeed, this was the most cunning person of humanity. With just one sentence, he solved both of these different dilemmas.

"So, can I go now?" Feisha held up his hands and glared at him.

Gin looked up towards the endlessly spiralling staircase. "Is getting to the top floor really that easy?"

"Of course. Have you really not gone up before? Even once?" Although Metatron told him that he was the first one to ever reach the top floor, he still didn"t quite believe it. Every time he could just sort of wander up there- it was even easier than dropping by a McDonald"s or a KFC.

Gin"s eyes dulled a bit with a nearly imperceptible thread of gloom. "The Blood Clan is a cursed race, and we will never be able to approach Heaven."

"How I wish fallen angels would never return to Heaven either." Feisha mumbled under his breath, then laughed humorlessly. "Somehow that"s very selfish of me?"

Gin seemed to think of something, and his furrowed expression faded. "I think I know why he was willing to grant you your request now."

Feisha asked curiously. "Why?"

Instead of answering, Gin asked instead, "Do you know what the biggest difference between Man and G.o.d is?"

"I know. Men were created by G.o.d, but G.o.d was not a creation of Man." Feisha replied without hesitation.

Gin"s mouth pulled tight. Really, Feisha always managed to come up with answers light years away from what he expected, but he couldn"t say that they didn"t make sense. "What about other differences?"

"Just tell me the answer directly." This question was one without a logical answer- he could guess a hundred times over without hitting the right one.

Gin slowly explained. "G.o.d stands on High, and thinks only of others. While Men- no, rather all the races other than G.o.d- they only have the capability to think of themselves. Because none of them can stand above it." Feisha seemed to understand. "But G.o.d believes that this is selfishness." Gin lowered his head, staring at the ground with a smile that didn"t look quite right. "That this is the root of all sin."

Pride, envy, gluttony, sloth, wrath, l.u.s.t, greed…no one could escape their origin in selfishness.

"But there is one sin that is an exception to this." Gin added.

Feisha responded without thinking twice. "Indifference?"

"Do you know why Isefel"s sin was not listed among the seven deadly sins?"

"I heard it was because he responded to G.o.d with his own question."

"The truth is that before Isefel, indifference was the sin of G.o.d alone. Because all other beings were selfish, in their selfishness, they were unable to remain perfectly indifferent. But then Isefel appeared. He loved no one, and he didn"t love himself. He looked upon everything indifferently." Gin tightened his grip on the stair rails.

Feisha listened quietly.

"Perhaps G.o.d saw his own sin in Isefel. So despite the fact that Isefel had sinned, his sin could not be revealed."

Feisha spoke slowly. "So the reason Metatron hoped I could cleanse Isefel of his indifference was because…."

"Because he hopes G.o.d can be cleansed of this as well. He hopes to prove that indifference can be cleansed." If G.o.d had more benevolent back then, perhaps there would be no Blood Clan today. Although it had been a long time since he had last seen Cain, he would forever remember the way Cain looked upon the cross. It was an inverted cross, for the Blood Clan had no right to bear the true cross. Thus every cross of the Blood Clan was inverted.

Cain liked to turn himself into a bat, hanging upside down in prayer. Gin learned how to do it once when he was very young. Since then, he finally knew what an upright cross looked like.

Gin"s words lead Feisha thoughts to wander far into the distance. He spent quite a while reflecting silently by himself before he suddenly spoke. "Say, why do you think Isefel was cleansed of his indifference?"

Gin"s surge of emotion was brought to a sudden halt by the almost naive question.

"And…that kiss before he left…" Feisha bowed his head shyly, dragging one of his feet on the ground. "What did it mean?"

Gin was left completely speechless.

Feisha slowly continued. "I…could I take this as a sign that Isefel actually likes me?"

"…Weren"t you going to look for Metatron? Go ahead, go on."

"Oh, one last question." This time, Feisha was the one who grabbed onto his shoulder. "Would Isefel be…angry with my request?"

"No, no of course not, he"ll be over the moon, jumping for joy, singing every day, Hallelujah!"  Gin quickly shook him off and headed back towards Hughes" room, all the while thinking: he must have been exhausted out of his wits. That"s why he had wasted so much of his precious time that he could have spent kissing Hughes…standing around and talking all this nonsense instead.

The door to Hughes" room was open. Gin rushed in quickly, and the door shut automatically behind him. A cloud of white steam filled the bathroom.

Hughes" eyes were closed as he lay in the bathtub, the water rising up to his chest, just flush against his collarbone. Gin slowed his steps and knelt down next to the bathtub.

Hughes" eyelashes fluttered slightly as he opened his eyes. He smiled gently. "You"re back?"

"Mnn." Gin placed both hands on the side of the tub and rested his head on top of them, his gaze never leaving Hughes.

"Is Feisha doing alright?" Hughes sat up and the water slid down his torso, revealing a pale, lean chest.

Gin felt his lower half tighten and he didn"t dare look again. He quickly grabbed one of the towels from the shelf, prepared to wrap Hughes up in it. "He"s doing great. He"s already found himself a solution, so don"t worry about it."

"That"s good then." Hughes stopped him, then added shyly. "The bathtub is big enough."

"You"re too tired." Gin caressed his shoulder lovingly.

"It"s alright. I"ve got enough strength for this at least." Hughes" voice grew softer and softer.

The bath towel fell to the floor…followed by the rest of Gin"s clothes.