Ch.11

In hell, the conference room in the embassy, the meeting of the extermination day, 4:00 pm.

As an exile, Lucifer wasn't allowed to visit heaven. So the conference was held in hell. The angels had arrived earlier and sat down around the table. Adam, Lute, Sera, and tens of other angels attended there as well. The major angels of heaven, even though they were much younger than Adam, looked nervous.

This was the day to meet the infamous fallen angel, Lucifer Morningstar. And they were going to propose to him that if they caught and killed his people.

It wouldn't be strange if war broke out right after. That's why the unnecessarily many angel warriors had been assigned in the case of battle.

"... It's freaking awkward we are only sitting around like this." Adam impatiently said.

Sera gave him a reproaching look. 'Behave appropriately for your place, Adam,' he could hear her saying despite her not saying it.

The door burst open. Every attention focused on the man standing in front of the double door.

The most excited of them all, Adam reared up, almost throwing his chair.

He yelled, pointing at him with a finger, "HA! LOOK AT-"

The ugly face! He meant to say that. But only he stood still.

The king of hell looked as small as had been illustrated in the sources. But it was a far cry from an awful look. His lean body looked good in his ringmaster-like suit. His pink cheeks gave a vivid glow to his pale white skin. Lucifer took a look around the conference room. Different from the horrible looks in the records, he was,

'...too pretty!'

Adam's inner voice said.

So, Adam, who had just stood up and shouted in the middle of the meeting for no reason, grumbled "...the last coming." He spat it out and sat down.

Because the meeting brought equality to the fore, it progressed at the round table conference. Coincidentally, the seat of the leader of the hell side was right next to the chief of the heaven side. It was a large table but not enough so that Adam could touch him by stretching out his arm. Lucifer took a seat that had been made considering his height. Adam had been glaring at him since he came in.

Lute started the introduction. But all the angels' eyes were on Lucifer. The strongest being in heaven and hell. The highest fallen angel who dominated at the lowest bottom of hell. Even though he looked like a small circus doll, he clearly showed a calm attitude of the top class. No he looked too calm.

The presentation had already reached its core, explaining the day of extermination. It was covered in layers of neat words, but the content was ultimately that the population level was too pressuring for them, so they would randomly kill their people to control it.

The angels had never expected a peaceful talk. But to this extent, how could... just nothing happen?

They couldn't find any emotion from the king's blank eyes. He just looked like he had woken up in the morning and was sitting here to wait for his breakfast.

Adam wasn't listening to Lute, so there was obviously no one to focus on the presentation. Adam's eyes had been on him all along. But Lucifer had never met his eyes. What brazen... annoying demon! How dare he steal what was Adam's. And now being in front of the woman's ex-husband and leader of enemies as well, how dare he not give any glance? Adam was mad at the blatant disregard he had never experienced in his life.

The presentation was over in the end. Now everyone was waiting for the king's answer. Only then did Lucifer open his mouth to say something. All the angels in the room, except for Adam, tensed. Because Lucifer had unbelievably been calm, it seemed like he might burst into a fit of fury and attack. The angels put their hands near their weapons so that they could take them out immediately.

"Okay."

He said okay. What does that mean? Is it the introduction to 'Okay let's start a war, fuckers'? Lucifer roughly browsed around them. All the angels looked serious, interpreting the meaning of that single word, so he just added "Do whatever you want. If you only don't touch my family. I don't care."

His voice was dry. The room that had been filled with tension now filled with confusion. The angels froze, appalled, hastily rolling their eyes to read the atmosphere.

Lute was pissed by his answer. She thought Lucifer hadn't even listened to the whole proposal. But before she could say a word, a faster yelling came out. "We're telling you now you're all dead, fucker!"

Adam almost stood from his seat, shaking his finger at Lucifer. "We're going to tear your people apart piece by piece, ruin your shitty kingdom, and take everything away from you! If you sign it now, you could even resist this, you know? We're going to take it all away!"

"S-Sir, we didn't mean it that..." an angel next to him stuttered in shock. Due to his unplanned aggressive provocation, everyone in the room froze.

And that made Lucifer's words ring through the room so clearly.

"Like I took your wife?"

"...What?"

Silence. A few angels started to cite prayers beneath their breath, thinking the day of extermination could be tonight.

"Are you just-"

Refreshments were ready to be served at that amazing timing. Some servants came into the room and served plates and jars. As this meeting progressed in hell, the hell side prepared a meal. The deserts were pancakes.

"Please enjoy."

Pancakes at the summit meeting... It was hard to tell whether it was a fashion of hell or just Lucifer's taste.

The angels began to pick up forks and knives out of courtesy. Adam kept arguing amid the hustle and bustle.

"You brazen... how can you be so chill? Have you ever had a conscience?"

"Let me get this straight," Lucifer lifted his cutlery too. "You weren't dumped, she left you first." A forked tongue was slightly visible between his lips in a smile. The hell's king was obviously provoking the first man to be pissed. And Adam was being completely fooled by it.

"Fuck you! You don't know. Lilith loved me more, but you interrupted us."

Lucifer was cutting his pancake without giving Adam an eye. "No. You two never even loved each other."

"Ha! Fucking hilarious. Sir, do you know me? You've never even met us. How are you so sure?"

Lucifer didn't answer. He looked as if he couldn't feel anything. But the truth was, that Lucifer had done too many things, and his heart had worn off, to the point of looking like feeling nothing. As if a bottle was full of water so that there were no waves when it was shaken. There was no room for accommodating grief and sorrow anymore in him.

But even so, Lucifer couldn't help but sense bitterness from the words Adam had just said. How am I so sure? How could I tell him? Like, because I know how you love?

I know how you smile, how your eyes look when you are in love. I had seen all of them from up close. Just in front of you. Lucifer swallowed the words that would never be conveyed. Maybe he had experienced too many centuries. He was accustomed to living with the words he couldn't say rather than the ones he could. So he could only hide his emotions and answer like this.

"Because she said you were terribly impotent."

Some angels coughed immediately in poor attempts to hide laughs. Adam turned red with anger. "I'M NOT- I'm the FUCKING DICKMASTER-"

"Adam, please," Sera whispered running low on her patience. Adam glared at her once. But he couldn't defy Sera. So he reluctantly took his seat.

"...I think it's a good time to put an end," Lucifer slightly shrugged his shoulder. "Have your pancakes and get out of my house."

Lute couldn't believe it could be so easy like this. Others were thinking the same. Meanwhile, Lucifer was delicately cutting his pancake.

Adam still fumed like having so much to say but gave up in the end because of the king's indifference. He flopped into his chair. Alright, fine. It was meaningless to make a fuss. The extermination day was set in stone anyway. I'm only going to get there and raze his hell.

Adam tried to hold his anger back and picked up his cutlery with trembling hands. Yeah, hold it in now. Cause I'm the bigger person. Let it slide for now. The fucking first man, Adam! Man of men! Yeah, cause my mind and dick are fucking bigger than you!

Lucifer had just finished cutting and started to chew a piece of his pancake. Adam poked his pancake and put it in his mouth without cutting it.

Slap!

But then Lucifer slapped Adam's hand causing his fork to hit the floor.

By the sharp sound of silverware, every hand in the room stilled.

"......What now, fucker! You said, eat!" Adam looked back at him just dumbfounded beyond anger.

"Don't, sorry," Lucifer was almost standing while spreading his hand. "I've forgotten to replace it with honey. This is maple syrup."

"So what?!"

"You are allergic to it."

It came out so naturally that Lucifer couldn't notice what was wrong.

The angels looked puzzled as one. So did Adam, but he raised a brow like in doubt. "... I was."

"When I was alive."

All of the angels there had been born since Adam came to heaven. So, the only one who had met human Adam should be only Sera. Only then did Lucifer realize what he had just said.

"How do you know that?"

Lucifer held his breath for seconds as if he were baffled. He was showing his emotion for the first time in the meeting. Lucifer's shaken eyes met Adam's, and someone's heart started to flutter. Adam lowered his voice and asked again, "How do you know that?"

"...Well, did I- maybe? read it in the bible? Haha, oh my. Living forever isn't so good. Scrambles memories." Lucifer rattled off and sat down again. His eyes wandered to the table to look at whatever was not Adam.

But Adam looked him straight in the eyes. Even if he didn't have any clue, the question sounded firm.

"Have we met before?"

Lucifer answered immediately, "No, of course not. Just forget what I said."

'Yes we have, for fuck's sake!'

Adam didn't say that. No one did so in the room, but Adam could hear the voice clearly.

When he tried to ask more,

"It's enough, I'm sure."

Sera said. Her calm tone was as usual, but sounded a bit louder.

"I'm glad to have reached the agreement. We both would benefit from it. Thank you for your time."

Other angels hurriedly stood up as if on cue. The room was bustling with packing up. Lute did so too, still unbelieving in this easy conclusion.

Lucifer leaped to his feet and walked up to the door. The only one who was still sitting was Adam.

"Well done, Adam. You made it," Sera said, opening a portal. Only after his name was called did he stand up. Lucifer had already gone out, slamming the door behind him.

Sighs of relief came out here and there. Adam's gaze was still fixed on the door.

"Adam," Sera called him one more time. More firmly.

He raised his head like waking up from sleep, laughed like a fool, and followed them.

They arrived at the heaven palace through the portal. The trademarks of heaven, its white and shining interior, welcomed them.

Adam was supposed to feel at home as usual. But for some reason, it wasn't so anymore.

After he had met the king of hell, everything had been going strange. The place that had been his home for a long time felt unfamiliar to him, and he felt a kind of dejavu at the first conversation.

He started to keep thinking about the meeting and the inner voice he had heard once again. Adam often heard voices in his mind that weren't natural for each moment.

The reason he thought of it as an inner voice was because it was his own voice. So he had never looked at it in other ways.

But today, a new possibility had occurred to him for the first time. It was like it could be... a memory.

Every angel dispersed to each section. Adam headed to his place, too.

"You were right, Lute."

Adam said to the woman who was following him. He looked somehow tired for some reason. He muttered so quietly that it sounded like he was talking to himself, "Hologram might be better."

A question, buried deep in the ground for thousands of years. It had been sleeping as if it were dead. But one day, a drop of rainwater fell on it, consoling its long thirst, and making it sprout in the end.

Then so slowly but certainly it grew toward the surface.