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Denji - That was my name! Definitely, that's the last thing I heard my Ma' call me! - hummed as he swayed left to right with the imaginary tune in his head. The white padded room that they held him in didn't exactly have any fun ways to keep him distracted. He had counted the cushions and the cracks between a thousand times already in the last year that he's been there! Really, they should at least give him a TV or something. Even though he was in a straight jacket and wouldn't be able to change the channels, he could at least watch the commercials.
He liked to watch commercials. It was how he was able to keep up with the outside world!
They — They as in the big scary men in blue costumes — took him away from his fancy little shed out in the woods when they found out he killed a bunch of gang members. Honestly, Denji didn't see a problem with killing a bunch of assholes. They made his Dad kill himself, after all!
"I was totally justified in killing all those dickheads," Denji said as he turned to the empty corner of the room. "Ain't that right, Pochita!?"
"…" Pochita replied.
"Yeah, I knew you would agree!" Denji happily crooned.
His buddy Pochita has been with him ever since his Dad killed himself. An ever constant companion — he helped him make decisions when he was having trouble figuring out what to do! Like there was one time that he didn't know what to eat: Either a loaf of bread, or a meat loaf! They both had loaf in it, and loaf was his favorite food! So he differed to Pochita's opinion, and he told him to carve up that gangbangers body and start eating it!
It was the best food he'd had in ages. It was the only thing that was able to fill his belly up to the very tippy top!
Of course, the men in the blue suits and the black sticks came and didn't seem to like it when he offered them a bite.
He went from box to box with metal bars for doors until they put him in a big brown room with surprisingly comfy chairs. An old guy sat at a podium wearing a silly little wig, and the next thing he knew, he was tossed in this cell! Thankfully, the walls, floors, and even the ceiling were made of pillows. So it was a thousand times more comfortable than the shed he used to live in!
"I see this as quite an upgrade!" Denji looked at Pochita again. "I know I say it every day, but c'mon Pochita, just look at the place!"
"…"
"I know, right!?" Denji cracked up laughing. "Everything's a pillow in here. It took a while to get used to this straight jacket thingamajig, but I remember wanting a pillow the entire time we lived in that shed!"
"…"
"Yeah, I'm real glad they let me keep you, too," Denji smiled warmly at the empty corner, seeing the small, round, orange dog that the doctors swore would go away if he took those weird white pills they kept trying to give him. Why would he take those white pills if it meant he wouldn't be able to see his best friend anymore? He took a few of them in the beginning, but then the world just seemed so boring and depressing. He felt worse when he took the pills, so nowadays he's just been coughing up the pills every day when they let him go to the bathroom. He got really good at that, it was one of his talents! Spitting up the pills was the highlight of his day, because it meant he got to keep seeing his friend!
"…"
"I love you too, buddy!" Denji cooed at his ever constant companion. "Out of everyone, you're the only one who's never let me down."
"W-what about me…?"
"Ah!" Denji jumped a little at the feminine voice.
His head craned up toward the ceiling, his lips curling into a surprised but happy grin.
"Is that you again, Angel Reze?"
"Who else would it be, silly?" Reze, the voice from that vent above his room replied with a giggle. Her voice was so sweet and heartwarming! "I was listening to you ramble on again. Ramble ramble! I like hearing you ramble, it's the highlight of my day!"
"Me too!" Denji yelled back up to the voice in the ceiling.
He and the angel in the ceiling had been talking for the last few days now. The men in the white cloaks kept telling him that he was imagining things, that there was no voice coming from the ceiling. They even came in and tried to hear it themselves! But they were stupid, stupid! Of course his angel wasn't going to respond to them when it was him that she wanted to talk too! Thankfully, they just gave up and figured that since it wasn't hurting anyone when he talked to the ceiling, that it was fine. Chalked it up as him being crazy.
"Pft, crazy? Me? No way,"
"I know, right!?" Reze giggled with him. "They call me crazy for talking to you, too. They don't believe I have the voice of a cute boy in my floor… I think they are just jealous, though."
"Hell yeah!" Denji laughed. "I am cute, and they're the crazy, jealous ones!"
"Hehe, yeah!" Reze's voice when she giggled was always so cute, he loved it! "But hey… you didn't mean it when you said Pochita is your only buddy who's never let you down, right…?"
"Oh, that?" Denji rolled his eyes and sighed dreamily. "You're more than just a buddy, Reze, so I wasn't thinking about you!"
"R-really…?" Reze stammered, sounding bashful all of a sudden. "Then… what am I to you?"
"Weeeeeellll," Denji dragged on the word long enough to sense the smile on what must've been a really pretty face. "Since you asked, I think you're a lot more than just a buddy! We've only been talking for like, a week or so. But It's felt like years! I feel that I know you more than I know myself, Reze, I sorta see you like a wife to me!"
"Haaauh!?" Reze gasped dramatically. "Really!? T-That's… that's amazing, Denji! B-Because… I've seen you like a husband this entire time!"
"No kiddin'!?" It was Denji's turn to gasp next. "Wowzers… This must be fate or somethin'!"
"Yeah! Fate!" Reze agreed instantly. "We must be destined to be together, Denji! We have to be! Otherwise, we wouldn't have met like this! Think about it, Denji: I am the angel in the ceiling, and you're the devil in the floor! We were always meant to meet in the middle… don't you think?"
"That makes sense to me!" Denji happily accepted her reasonable explanation. "If I knew eating that guy would send me here so I could meet you sooner, I would have done it way sooner!"
"Yeah, same! I would have burned down the orphanage way sooner too!" Reze giggled along with him. "But we're together now, Denji, that's what matters, doesn't it?"
"Of course!" Denji scooted closer to the wall, using his shoulders and his knees to help him prop himself up into a standing position. He would never be able to reach the vent, at least not with his arms bound like this, but he wanted to get as close to his angel as he could.
"Say… Denji…?" Angel Reze's voice took a saccharine tone. "Since we're married now… we need to have a honeymoon, don't we?"
"Yeah, that sounds awesome," Denji replied just loud enough so his voice would carry through the vents. "I so want to go do one of those with you…"
"Me too~," Reze bashfully replied. "I have an idea… I think it'll work - I stole the lighter off the doctor lady the last time she tried to give me my pills. She's a smoker, so I knew she'd have one."
"A lighter?" Denji felt his eyes go wide. "That's against the rules, Reze!"
"We have to break the rules in order to be together, Denji," Reze explained firmly. "We are on different floors, and they don't let boys and girls stay together… I am terrified that they are going to move one of us! I don't want to wake up one day and hear a voice that isn't yours speak to me… So please, Denji, can you pretty please try to run away with me?"
"W-Well…" Denji felt his face flush a deep crimson. This was… this was everything he used to dream of, right? While he was living out of that shed, he told Pochita ton's of times how he wished he could get a girlfriend. He always wanted to know what romance was like…
… and being cooped up in this room with pillows for walls was nice and all, but it wasn't a girlfriend.
It wasn't Reze.
"Will we have lots of sex?" Denji asked hopefully.
"Yes!" The Angel In The Ceiling happily confirmed. "Lots and lots of sex!"
"Then it's a date!" Denji nodded his head excitedly. "What's the plan?"
"You, my dear husband, just need to sit tight and wait for me…" Reze explained. "When you hear the big boom, that's how you know I'm on my way!"
"Whoa, big boom!?" Denji made a mystified noise toward the ceiling. "What's that sound like, I've never heard a boom before!"
"Hehe~ You'll know it when you see - I mean hear it!" Reze exclaimed. "Don't go to sleep tonight, Denji — and don't take that light blue pill! That pill puts us to sleep every night, and I need you wide and awake for our grand escape!"
"Alright! Sounds like a plan!" Denji plopped his happy ass back down on the pillow floor. "I'll be waiting for you, Reze!"
Just like she told him too, Denji spat back up the light blue pill in the bathroom right after dinner. He ended up throwing up most of his food too, but that was okay. He was used to being hungry. He could be hungry for just one night if it means he'll be able to finally meet his angel!
"…?"
"This is totally gonna work, Pochita," Denji replied to his concerned orange friend. "Besides, what's the worse that they can do to me now? I'm already in crazy jail, are they gonna send me to super crazy jail? We might as well try, right?"
"…!"
"Whaaaat?! Reze is totally real!" Denji scoffed and turned his chin up. "Don't tell me you think I'm crazy too, do ya? Because I'm not… I'm not!"
"My Dad thought I was crazy, but he stopped thinking that real quick when I smashed that bottle over his head!" Denji spat out hatefully. He hated his Dad, he kept hitting him and blaming him for all his problems, and then tried to call him crazy like his Mom! What a dickhead. "The Yakuza guys thought I was crazy too, but then I killed them all with a chainsaw! A chainsaw you provided for me, don't you remember!? Then I ate them, because I was hungry, and it was one of the best days of my life! You told me to do that, Pochita, so don't you start callin' me crazy now!"
"…"
"You're right… I shouldn't yell at you…" Denji sighed regretfully. "You have been there through thick and thin, ever since before my Ma' died… I shouldn't be mean to you."
"…?"
"Yeah, friends again!" Denji wished he could fist bump his buddy, so he used his imagination to do it instead. "Now, I wonder when Reze will-"
KABOOOOOOM!
"Ah!" Denji felt the entire building rattle around him. "That must be what a big boom sounds like! See!? I told you Reze was real! I told you, I told you!"
Denji had trouble staying on his feet as several more big booms happened in quick succession. Outside his cell, he heard rubble fall from the ceilings, and the rats in the walls began to scatter in a panic. Denji laughed the entire time, because man, this was the most fun he's had in a while! He imagined himself dancing for the first time ever as he tried to maintain his balance in his padded cell. He bounced off the walls, and even when the door to his cell swung open as one of the doctors tried to get him, he ignored him and kept on bouncin! Reze was on her way now, after all, and they were going to run away together!
"Denji, we've got to go! There's been a gas leak explosion, everyone is in dan- Ku-hack!"
The nameless man's voice cut off as a shiv was stabbed through the back of the neck and out his throat. Denji watched as a purple haired girl jumped up, and shoved the man down to the floor with her weight. She stabbed him again and again — too many times for him to count!
Denji's eyes widened with awe as he watched the purple haired girl do her thing. She was so lithe and lean, but she had so much ferocity in her movements! He was instantly captivated upon seeing her, so much so that when she raised her head to look at him at last, he felt his face go hot!
"Are you… Denji?" The green eyed, purple haired girl asked in a deadly tone.
"Reze?" Denji happily gasped. "Wow, you're so pretty! You really are an angel!"
Reze's bloody face went from emotionless and deadly to that of a blushing maid. She shied in on herself, suddenly nervous to even have him looking at her.
"Wow… you're so cute, too!" Reze cooed between her fingers. "I knew listening to the devil beneath the floorboards was a good idea! Here, c'mere my darling!"
Reze ran at him with the knife, stabbing the straight jacket and then ripping it upward to slice all the binds off of him. For the first time in who knows how long, Denji was able to stretch his arms and fully extend them! He felt the bones in his shoulders and elbows crack — and loudly at that. Then, he looked back at Reze, cupping his shaking hands around her face.
"This really is a dream come true," Denji said as the building burned and began to crumble around them.
"It really is~," Reze cooed, raising her hands to cup his face and also take one of his hands. "Now we run away together. I know the way out, come with me, Denji, follow me. I'll teach you everything you don't know, okay?"
Denji nodded stupidly at her.
Reze patted his face lovingly. "Good boy~"
Reze interlocked their hands together and lead him down a winding, confusing path through the burning building. It looked like at the same time, there was some patient riot going on! So all the security guards were busy, and no one even bothered to give them a second glance as they ran off together! Reze took him away from the front door, because that was where the firefighters were going to be coming from, apparently, and instead took her to a staff area! She was so smart, really, she had this all planned out! Denji wondered just how long Reze had been here before she met him, but in the end, it didn't really matter to him. She was here with him now, and Denji knew once and for all that he wasn't crazy. This all felt too real to be another dream! The heat was real, her pretty face was real! And the screams and fires all around were real too!
They escaped through an open garage door that was conveniently left open for them in all the chaos, and the two of the ran and ran and ran until they were both out of breath.
The two of them stopped as they came to the top of a hill in the middle of the woods. The hill was so tall that it overlooked the entire prison-hospital that they've been cooped up in for ages!
Denji and Reze stood together, her in a dark blue female patient's outfit and him in his light gray drabs. With heavy breaths, the two of them finally embraced each other. He hugged her tight and swung her around and around, laughing and giggling together like the teens in love that they were!
He only let her down when he was out of breath again, and he pressed his forehead against hers.
"T-this is real, right?" Denji asked fearfully. "This isn't another bad dream?"
"Heh~" Reze touched his face, her fingers caressing his lips. "I was about to ask you the same thing… I think this is real, though. Because this is going to be real,"
Reze jumped from her tippy toes and smashed her mouth against his. Denji had never been kissed before, and so he didn't know what to do other than stand there and hold her as her tongue violently assaulted his mouth. After a few seconds, he leaned into the kiss, and did his best to reciprocate the affections that the two of them have had for each other for what felt like eons…
"Now comes the big boom~" Reze breathlessly told him when they finally broke away. "Watch this, hubby~ This is what a real boom looks like."
Denji did as he was told, letting Reze shift their positions as they sat down next to each other on the top of the hill overlooking the building.
The building went up in fireworks, the explosions inside causing the building to become unstable. He didn't know what sort of thing would happen next, but a mushroom cloud of orange fire so bright and so hot he could feel it from hundreds of meters away was not on his bingo card today!
"Wow…" Denji said, feeling his face get sunburned. "That's awesome! How were you able to do that?"
"Hehe~" Reze snuggled into his shoulder. "Let an Angel have her secrets, hm?"
"Heh," Denji wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Sure, I think I could live without knowing a few things after all…"
~ Denji and Reze lived happily ever after ~