Yuki yawned. It had been a long, boring day so far, full of nothing but idiots. Not a single intelligent person had talked to him all day long. Of course, not many people had talked to him at all, but still, none of them had been intelligent. It wasn't surprising though, since so far he'd only met three people at his workplace who weren't idiots. One of them was his boss.

He'd thought when he first agreed to the "temporary" position, that MAGUS, the organization that controlled the world's flow of magical energies, would employ smart people. Of course, he was dead wrong. They were too cheap to do that. The only intelligent people in the place were troublemakers who couldn't be placed elsewhere, and dead souls, like him. And they, even though usually far overqualified, were immediately put into logistics or secretarial work.

It was boring. Unfortunately, he couldn't get out of it. He'd agreed to a ten year contract, and though they had said his secretarial work would only be temporary, he was stuck there until the ten years were up. And it had only been four so far.

Anyway, it was hard to get a job if you were one of the dead who were unable to leave the living world, for whatever reason. (Such as having an obsessive and insane older sister who couldn't take no for an answer and instead bound your soul to her before killing you by slow torture.) He was dead, and couldn't starve, but he grew weak if he didn't eat, which made him easy prey for the spirit predators who just loved loose souls. So, he needed the work...and this was one of the few places that would hire him.

"Booooooooooring," he said to himself as he turned around to change the radio station. There was no one around, so he could switch away from the boring crap the boss set it to every morning. The job was a little less boring when he could listen to some decent music.

"That doesn't sound like Danner's music," a voice called from the other side of the desk. Yuki jerked around, turning bright red at being caught.

"I was just..." he said hastily, but trailed off as he saw the figure standing on the other side of the desk.

The man standing there was one of the few intelligent people who worked for MAGUS, one of the troublemakers. He was a tall man, in his early twenties by appearance, with a lean build. He had long hair that tended to change color from day to day (it was a bright neon purple that day), but that always had a few silver strands in the bangs. His eyes were a clear ice blue, most of the time. They darkened, and turned almost purple, when he was particularly happy, something Yuki knew from person experience. He was the kind of man that the women swooned over, and the clerk had hated him when they first met because of that.

"Mou, Allen," the clerk said. "Don't scare me like that!"

"But Yuki," Allen protested, "you're so cure when you're startled."

Yuki blushed bright red, a shade that matched his eyes, which were the customary color for a dead soul. Allen leaned forward across the desk to brush Yuki's slightly long, black bangs out of his eyes. He then stared at Yuki for a moment, causing the clerk to turn even brighter red, before giving a low chuckle.

"Aww, he's blushing," Allen commented, to no one in particular. "How cute." Then he leaned forward a little more and brushed his lips against Yuki's forehead. The universe had to pause ever so slightly (not anywhere near long enough for a person to notice though), so it could create a new shade of fluorescent red, just so Yuki's face could turn that color.

"Allen!" he sputtered nervously. "We're at work, in public!"

"So?" Allen asked.

"So don't do that!" Yuki exclaimed. "What if someone sees us?

"Fine, fine..." Allen said, pouting. "It's not like anyone's around. They're all too busy."

"What are you doing here anyway?" Yuki asked. "Aren't you supposed to be working with everyone else?"

"It's a holy day," Allen replied.

"Which means that they need everyone to help," Yuki said.

"I can't work on a holy day," Allen said.

"It's a holy day for your religion?" Yuki asked incredulously. Allen nodded. "I didn't know you even believed in a god... And I never thought there would be a god who would accept you as one of his followers."

"She's a very tolerant god," Allen said. "And it's kinda an inherited religion. I didn't have much of a choice in the matter."

"Oh," Yuki said. "Well, why are you here then, if you're supposed to be resting for your holy day?"

"You mean you didn't want me to come visit you?" Allen asked, pouting a little. "I don't think She'll mind that...in fact, She usually encourages that type of thing."

"...I am trying to work you know..." Yuki said.

"I know," Allen said, grinning. "That's what makes this even more fun!"

He then leaped over the desk to land in Yuki's lap. This caused the clerk to almost topple over in his chair, which made Allen laugh. Yuki tried to push him off, but he refused to move, and instead started tickling the pinned boy. Before long, both of them were laughing helplessly, and thus, neither of them noticed when an older man walked into the room, frowning at the display in front of him.

"Ahem!" the man said, glaring at the two in the chair. Yuki immediately froze, turning bright red and starting to make some sort of excuse. Allen simply removed himself from Yuki's lap and stood to the side, looking like he wasn't in the wrong in the slightest.

"And just what is going on here?" the older man asked.

"I was just visiting Yuki, sir," Allen said nonchalantly. "Then I tripped while I was coming in, and I landed in his lap. That's all." He smiled innocently. The older man frowned; it was clear he didn't believe Allen, but he didn't seem to be ready to argue either.

"And just what are you doing here instead of at work?" the older man asked.

"It's a holy day," Allen said. "You don't honestly expect me to work on one of my holy days, do you?"

"The only reason you care about your holy days is because you get off of work," the old man said.

"Well, that's the point of them, so yeah," Allen replied. "But it's still just as illegal for you to try and force me to work today."

"And it's still very much against the rules for you to be disrupting Yuki's work," the older man shot back. "So get out of here."

"Yes sir!" Allen said sharply, saluting. He then marched out of the room in an obviously mocking manner. Yuki, still bright red, watched silently as he left. Then, the older man turned to him, and he tried to shrink into the chair.

"Were his actions welcome, Yuki?" he asked, his tone surprisingly gentle for what Yuki was expecting.

"Y-yes, Mr. Danner..." Yuki admitted, his face growing warmer. "I'm not in too much trouble for this...am I?"

"No, I think I'll let you go this time," Danner said. "Considering I came over here to tell you to take the rest of the day off. Everyone's out busy, so I don't think we'll be needing you in here any more today. I just wanted to make sure that Allen's... affections... weren't uninvited."

"Oh...no sir..." Yuki said quietly. "Well, not most of the time. It' s just..."

"He really should tone down his behavior in public, shouldn't he?" Danner asked. Yuki nodded. "Well then, Yuki... I still have a lot to do today, with this impromptu holy day, so I'll be going. You have a nice day."

"Thank you sir," Yuki said.

As soon as Danner was out of the room, Yuki sprang up from his chair and grabbed his jacket. He ran from the room as fast as he could get his legs to move, pulling the jacket on as he went. He wanted to be out of the building before Danner could change his mind and decide that Yuki was needed for something. It was his first day off in a long time, since MAGUS had to be functional round the clock, and they more or less always needed a clerk at the desk. They only had two clerks (the other one was the third of the intelligent people Yuki had seen at MAGUS in his four years there, another dead soul), so the two of them usually got to split each day between them, every single day.

Once outside, Yuki looked back at the MAGUS building, which was innocuously labeled MAGUS Services and didn't give a hint that the inside was quite a bit more spacious than the tiny little street front building should be. The sign on the building also gave no hint of what this MAGUS Services did, since everyone who needed to know already knew, or knew who to ask. Like most of the magical services and beings in the world, MAGUS was forced to act like a normal, mundane group, and they did it well, with the help of a little magic.

Because he was busy looking at the building, something he tended to do every time he left work, Yuki never noticed Allen, who was leaning against a telephone pole near the curb and waiting for the young clerk. Allen took advantage of this inattentiveness and slinked away from the pole to stand right behind Yuki. Then he put his hands around in front of the boy's eyes, covering them the same way a child would do when trying to surprise a good friend. This immediately caused Yuki to start in fright and try to turn around to see who was behind him. He was too frightened of the possible psychic predators to not do so, even though a bit of pressure from Allen's arms and hands kept him mostly immobile.

"Guess who?" Allen asked, and Yuki had to bite his tongue to keep from yelling out in frustration.

"Allen!" he exclaimed angrily, though some of that anger was fueled by the embarrassment that was starting to make itself shown on his face. "You scared me! I thought that a Jester had gotten a hold of me."

With that, Allen released Yuki, who whirled around to fix an angry glare on the older man. He raised his hands in defeat, a gesture to try and show that he was harmless. Of course, Yuki knew that Allen was far from harmless, even when he had his hands up like that. Allen worked for MAGUS, and all of their outside operatives were trained in combat magic. Yuki also knew that Allen was one of their best, probably because he was far overqualified for his job, just as Yuki was for his. Allen only needed to point a finger at his target to make his destructive magics activate, though he would never do that to a friend.

"You really should calm down some, Yuki," Allen said. His voice was utterly serious, though he continued to smile and hold up his hands in surrender. "I told you before, I won't let anyone hurt you. It's my duty as your knight."

Then he stepped forward and bent over slightly to pick Yuki up and start carrying him down the street. Yuki started to struggle, but Allen was strong and kept his hold on the boy without a single problem. As he proceeded down the street, vaguely in the direction of his apartment, Yuki's struggles became even more frantic.

"Put me down!" Yuki yelled, which caused a few of the people on the sidewalks to look at them curiously. This in turn made Yuki turn bright red and quiet down, so that his voice was no longer a yell, but an angry hiss. "You are not my knight! I can take care of myself. And I can certainly walk down the street, so put me down!"

"I'd rather carry you," Allen said.

"Everyone's staring."

"So let them stare," Allen exclaimed, almost like he was calling out to everyone on the street. "They don't matter."

"But it's embarrassing!" Yuki protested.

Allen's only response was to shift his arms a little, so that Yuki was tilted slightly toward him. This caused Yuki to slip slightly toward Allen's body, and he found that he had to press himself against the older man's chest in order to keep himself from turning over in Allen's arms and finding himself being carried facedown, all because of Allen's watch catching on the back of his shirt. His face grew ever redder as Allen walked down the street, and not all of it was because of the people who turned to watch them.

"Please, Allen?" Yuki asked.

Just then his shirt tore free of Allen's watch, and he slid down Allen's arms to gently bump up against the older man's chest. With that change in position, Allen no longer had a very tight hold on Yuki, but the boy didn't try to struggle free. Instead, he took hold of Allen's shirt for support and tried to keep from falling backward and hitting the sidewalk. While falling like that couldn't do any permanent damage to his solid spiritual body, it still hurt and all of his instinctive fears from when he was alive still remained.

Allen smiled at this change and took the opportunity to brush his cheek gently against Yuki's hair. It was a very tender gesture, but one that caused Yuki to suddenly freeze. Then he started struggling again, which almost sent him flying backwards to tumble to the ground. Allen just barely managed to keep him up, and he only did it with the help of a slight push of magic at the boy's back.

"Put me down, Allen!" Yuki shrieked, and the note of panic in his voice was enough to make everyone on the streets stop and stare at them. It was also enough to make Allen put him down.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, Yuki started running. He laid down magic behind him, instinctive creations that were meant to keep anyone following him away. Allen could feel them easily, and he knew that it would be useless to run after the fleeing boy. Even though he could see Yuki just fine, as soon as he hit the first spot of magic he would be gently shunted off in another direction. The amount of power that would be necessary to get through those patches was so great that Allen would be drained long before he caught up with the boy.

A sad look passed over Allen's face momentarily as he watched Yuki turn a corner and disappear. He was fairly sure that the boy would return to the house where her was living, but he also knew that he would be politely turned away if he presented himself there looking for Yuki. Instead, he wiped the sad look off his face and started strolling down the street casually in the same direction he had been going before, toward his apartment.