The next morning, Will came across Kiel on his way back from the market — in his female form, wearing the very gown Will had conjured for him. Kiel waved cheerfully and launched into a happy account of his morning: "Everyone seems to really like how I look like this! They all said I was pretty, and they were so generous too — gave me all sorts of vegetables on top of everything."

Will listened in silence, quietly exhaling. He knew perfectly well that Kiel simply believed in the straightforward kindness of people; he, on the other hand, understood exactly what lay behind all those compliments. He knew he couldn't forbid Kiel from doing anything — even if he said it plainly, Kiel would probably just smile with unshakeable confidence and not guard himself in the slightest. That guilelessness, that earnest, almost absurd simplicity — it was the thing Will loved most about him and the thing that drove him quietly, thoroughly mad.

Outwardly, Will kept his composure and even made a joke of it: "Sounds like a good deal. Maybe I should come along next time — I'd like some free gifts too." And Kiel, naturally, took him completely seriously. He even helpfully laid out his schedule in detail so Will could plan accordingly. Will smiled to himself with something between fondness and despair: Trusting enough to be anyone's fool — but the only one who gets to take advantage of that is me. Absolutely no one else.

And so Will found reasons to stay close — chance encounters, offhand invitations — always finding some excuse to be nearby. Kiel eventually noticed that ever since arriving in this city, the frequency with which he ran into Will had increased considerably. But he didn't mind in the least; if anything, he was glad to have company wherever he went. He thought to himself: The poor demon must be lonely, seeking me out this often. I really should look after him more.

They spent so much time together that the townspeople simply began to assume they were a couple. On one occasion, while chatting idly, an elderly woman smiled warmly at Kiel and remarked: "It's a lovely thing, having a husband who looks after you so well."

Kiel, with his unparalleled obliviousness, concluded without hesitation that she must be speaking about her own husband, and cheerfully congratulated her in return. What followed was an entirely harmonious conversation in which both parties were talking about completely different things. Will, standing a short distance away, heard every word, understood exactly what was happening, and had to suppress laughter so hard his whole frame shook.

But no matter how much Kiel loved the company, he was still Kiel — a free spirit who never stayed in one place too long. When Will learned that Kiel was preparing to move on again, something twisted unpleasantly in his chest. He knew perfectly well that Kiel was more than capable of handling himself, and yet the worry came anyway. Unable to follow openly without raising suspicion, Will resorted to the only weapon available to him: gifts.

He prepared everything — warm clothing, preserved provisions, finely crafted jewellery (money was categorically out of the question; he knew Kiel would spend it all without a second thought). He even slipped in a few carefully disguised tracking charms, framing it all under the justification: "You're a girl now, you need to be more prepared than before." Kiel was genuinely moved, accepted everything without a word of suspicion, packed it all up and set off — entirely unaware that Will was sitting at home with a map, watching every step.

Even the goat had begun to notice something was off with its master lately. No matter how much it deliberately goaded or provoked him, Will couldn't be bothered to argue back — he'd just shoo it away absently. In truth, ever since Will had taken it in, the goat had long been capable of walking upright and had even learned to take human form, but Will still called it "the goat" out of sheer habit.

Faithful creature that it was — despite its master's constant threats to roast it — the goat knew Will treated it well: decent food, a decent place to sleep, and protective spells whenever it had to face other demon generals. It had started provoking Will out of resentment, but somewhere along the way the habit had simply stuck. Occasionally it would even offer unsolicited updates on young master Sileon, which Will received with an expression of complete indifference — though the goat privately suspected he still wanted to hear it.

It remembered the early days, when it had been constantly bullied and threatened by the other demons. Each time, Will would appear, tell them to shut their mouths, and the goat would promptly dart behind him for cover. These days, not a single demon dared come near it. It had even grown bold enough to verbally eviscerate other demon lords with a tongue sharp enough to leave them seething. It knew Will always had to fight back laughter whenever it did — even if he would never admit it.

Back to Will: he was bent over his map, trying to calculate which city Kiel would head to next so he could get there first. He had, however, forgotten one essential truth: Kiel was Kiel. Kiel did not travel in straight lines. He meandered, doubled back on a whim, veered sideways on impulse — his movements followed no discernible logic whatsoever.

Will stared at the map, calculating and recalculating, running through possibility after possibility, then spiralling into his own paranoia: "What if something happens to him along the way?" (Nothing would happen. Kiel was more than capable of handling anything in his path.) He was going out of his mind with restlessness, yet couldn't very well fly directly to wherever Kiel was without making it obvious.

Meanwhile, Kiel was thoroughly enjoying the scenery, occasionally picking up something pretty along the road with the thought of giving it to Will later. One wandering afternoon led him to a deserted stretch of coastline. True to form, he jumped straight in for a swim — and then, for reasons known only to him, decided on a whim to swim directly out into the open ocean. (Somewhere at home, a demon stared at his map and went very still.)

Kiel returned to shore safely within a few hours — but it was enough to nearly break Will's resolve entirely. He understood, with sudden and painful clarity, that he could not keep this hidden for another moment. For the first time in his existence, Will did not want to remain in the shadows. He wanted to stand openly beside the person who mattered most to him. Rules be damned. He would find Kiel and say what needed to be said — whatever came of it, at least he would be free of this.

But fate, as ever, had other plans. Just as Kiel stepped ashore, a group of thieves relieved him of everything he was carrying — including Will's tracking charm. And so Will began moving further and further from where Kiel actually was. When he finally traced the signal and found the thieves instead, he came very close to losing control entirely — but held himself back just in time, and began the search for Kiel from the beginning.

Over the months that followed, searching with no lead to follow, Will had time to look at himself clearly. He felt foolish — impulsive, transparent, no better than a lovesick young man who'd never known heartache before. Finding Kiel had always been difficult; without the charm, it was like searching the bottom of the sea for a needle. He had to rely entirely on his understanding of Kiel's character to guess where he might have gone. Right — this is the season of the harvest festival, the biggest one of the year. Someone like him would absolutely be there.

He was right. When Will flew to the nearest village, the first thing he saw was Kiel, dancing and laughing among the villagers. The sight of him made something in Will's chest loosen completely — like setting down a weight he hadn't realized he'd been carrying. Kiel spotted him, lit up, and waved him over. Before Will could even think to decline, Kiel had already grabbed his hand and pulled him into the middle of the circle, into a folk dance that was cheerful and slightly absurd. Looking at that grinning face, Will found that every last bit of exhaustion he'd accumulated had quietly vanished.

When they had tired themselves out, they found a quiet corner to rest. Kiel gave Will a few small handcrafted things he'd bought along the way, then apologized, a little sheepishly, for losing everything Will had given him. Will felt no anger at all — only warmth, knowing that Kiel had still thought of him. In that moment, with the time and the place feeling exactly right, Will let himself speak. He told Kiel that what he felt for him had long since gone beyond anything a friendship could contain.

Kiel blinked, appearing to process this carefully, then broke into a bright smile: "You mean — a best friend? I've always wanted one of those, the kind humans talk about!"

A spectacular misunderstanding. Will opened his mouth to correct it — but Kiel had already produced a friendship bracelet, handmade and clearly kept for some time. He said he'd always been waiting to give it to the person who meant the most to him, and looked at Will with bright, expectant eyes. Looking at that face, Will could not bring himself to say anything to dim it.

He accepted the bracelet. He accepted the title of "best friend." Perhaps Kiel wasn't ready for something more — and Will could never bring himself to push. Kiel, overjoyed, promptly threw his arms around him in an exuberant hug, then immediately launched into a stream of cheerful chatter about everything and nothing. Will could only smile, helplessly.

The goat came home to find its master draped across the long chair with a colourful bracelet on his wrist, staring at nothing. It wanted to make a remark — something cutting and deserved — but found it couldn't. Instead it fetched a blanket and laid it over him. Will looked up at it, and sighed: "I preferred you when you looked like a goat."

Meanwhile, Kiel was quietly revelling in the joy of having a best friend at last. He couldn't exactly announce to anyone in Heaven that his best friend was a demon — but the next time they were out together in the mortal world, he would introduce Will to any human they met without a moment's hesitation.

Will, naturally, was not at all content with the title. In every meeting that followed, he behaved as he always did — but he also never stopped making his feelings known, ranging from subtle hints to statements entirely lacking in subtlety, including no fewer than ten sincere declarations of "I love you."

The trouble was that Kiel's straightforward mind had automatically translated every single one of these as: he's teasing me again. Each time Will said he loved him, Kiel would smile and say "I love you too" in a tone that meant I'm so fond of you, my dear best friend.

At this point, Will's goal had long since shifted beyond simple confession. It had become something closer to an obsession — he needed this impossibly oblivious angel to understand, on a fundamental level, what romantic love actually was. He loved Kiel to the point of madness, but there were moments when he also loved him to the point of wanting to throttle him.

They went on countless pseudo-dates — occasions where Will prepared everything with the meticulous care of a genuine romantic evening, while Kiel moved through it all with the uncomplicated happiness of someone thinking: outings with a best friend are just wonderful, aren't they.

Much as he despised the title, Will clung to it, because at least it was his alone. He used the language of best friendship to establish what he considered entirely reasonable boundaries: "I'm the only one who gets to be your best friend, you understand? You don't do these things with anyone else."

The effort was not entirely without result. Kiel began, slowly, to understand the concept of keeping certain things for certain people. He came to see that not everyone could be treated with the same warmth, the same closeness — and that what he had with Will was something genuinely set apart.

Since the moment Will had accepted what he felt for Kiel, he had found himself with no interest in anyone else. A demon of lust, going without for years on end — he recognized how pitiful that must look, and found he didn't care at all. He stopped expanding his territory, maintaining only the minimum necessary, and quietly shifted more of his responsibilities onto the goat. The goat was, as a result, considerably disgruntled — while it was buried in work, its master was off wandering around with his "best friend." How was this in any way fair?

Unable to stand it any longer, it decided to follow along and get a look at whatever creature had apparently managed to reform a demon lord. It charged in at precisely the moment the two were sitting down to a meal together. Will, startled and visibly annoyed, demanded to know what it was doing there. The goat answered with perfect composure: "I'm here to serve you, my lord." (The real reason was self-evident.) Because the memory had faded and because Kiel was currently in his female form, the goat didn't recognize him. Kiel, in turn, didn't recognize the goat in human form — but felt a strange, nagging familiarity all the same.

Kiel turned to Will and asked who this was. Will said: the goat. Kiel blinked, then felt a sudden and genuine rush of emotion: "You've been looking after it all this time?" He reached over and patted the goat on the head. The goat had, at this point in its existence, attained a level of power that should have made such treatment borderline insulting. And yet something about the warmth of Kiel's hand made it go completely, traitorously docile — it settled beside Kiel without protest, accepted the food shared with it, and basked in the attention with the composure of a very small and very pleased dog. Will watched this with profound irritation. From that point on, the goat decided it had no further grievances with its master — especially now that the "best friend" occasionally gave it small gifts, which it received with great contentment. Will, watching the goat be satisfied by trifles, curled his lip in magnificent disdain.

Will began to make full and systematic use of the "best friend" designation to legitimize the full range of couple's privileges. Holding hands, embracing, bringing flowers, feeding each other, resting his head in Kiel's lap — any gesture with even a passing resemblance to romance was presented by Will as perfectly standard best-friend behaviour. And because Kiel trusted him completely, Kiel accepted this without question, concluding that these must simply be the things best friends do. (Will was, in fairness, not entirely wrong — plenty of close friends did exactly these things.)

For Kiel, this was also the first time he had ever had a connection that ran this deep. He had many friends, both in Heaven and in the mortal world; he had Ezekiel, who had been something like a father since the very beginning. But no one had ever stayed beside him the way Will did — present for the small, unremarkable moments, the ones not worth mentioning to anyone else. Will had taught him things, too, in ways that mattered. Kiel found himself valuing all of it more than he could quite put into words.

If he could, he would have gone everywhere telling people how good Will was. But that was impossible. He was an angel; Will was a demon. No matter how genuinely kind Will might be, the others would never accept it. If it came to light, Kiel was afraid he would lose this — lose Will, permanently. He thought that if it ever happened, he would be devastated. But Will, he suspected, might be even more so. And Kiel didn't want that for him. So it was better, far better, to keep it between the two of them.