Shinigamis weren't cruel, or looked like those horrific monsters you saw in the medias. They were nice, gentle...or maybe his was at least.

One day, one of them had to take someone to the deathbed before he turned 16. While the Shinigami had accepted and nodded only, he felt a bit sick in his stomach cause he hated to see young deaths. His target was Kazuto Kirigaya, a twelve-year old boy with an incurable sickness. His health was so bad, that he might only had a few years to live...or a few days. It was unpredictable, whether if there is a way to cure him and when he will die exactly. So that means, that he could decide when this human is going to die. He decided to take the boy immediately, to get over it quickly and to spare any more pain for the poor boy.

So he did, entered the human realm of the looks from a twelve-year old boy. His blonde bangs remained the same, and his green eyes were big. He had some chubby cheeks though and he felt a bit light, but that wasn't the thing he came for, but to visit the said target.

Shinigamis may look like a human, but they don't have the body of them. They were like spirits, floating around and Illusions supporting the thought that he is a human like any other one and not death itself. So he easily floated through the apartment of the boy, who was laying in his bed and drank a glass of water. His eyes widened when the Shinigami just appeared in front of his bed, but that was all he did.

Huh, neat.

"Ah...is this one of my many surreal daydreams again?",he muttered to himself, putting the glass away. The Shinigamis face remained the same, as he spoke: "I am a Shinigami who has to inform you that you won't live longer than sixteen years."

"Yeah, right...",the boy just said, a smile on his face that told disbelief,"And Asuna is my girlfriend who had just confessed to me yesterday."

"Do you want me to prove it?"

"Don't think it'll change my mind but go on."

And when he said that, everything around him went black. He didn't even saw the so-said Shinigami, only black, nothing else. Kazuto would have thought that he was just dreaming as usual, but only with the difference that he wasn't and still has his consciousness.

And it scared him. This was too horrendous to be real.

But in a snap, he was in his room again, sitting on his bed and the blonde still in front of him.

"I want you to follow me and give up on living. It's best for both of us."

The target stared at him in shock and disbelief. He should what?!

"Wh-Why would I agree on that?!",he shouted, but the Shinigami had an answer for this: "You will die sooner or later, 4 years is the maximum you can get. If I won't take you now, I will do later due to your sickness. If you go with me now, any more pain and suffering will be spared towards yourself, your body, and your family."

Kazuto sank his head and he thought he finally convinced him. Or maybe that he would snap and beg for his life to spare him and let him live.

Instead, the black-haired boy lifted his head up and looked directly into his eyes: "I won't let you take my life so easily. Never."

"I can take your life without your consent, you know."

"Then why didn't you do that at the beginning already?"

The Shinigami did not find an answer to this.

Instead, he asked him: "So you do believe me now that I'm a Shinigami?"

"No, not really.",he replied,"But if you really are...then you should know that I, Kirito, will never give up on living, no matter how painful it will get!"

The words had hit the blonde, him hearing the first time ever an other response. No begging or willing, he refused death itself to take his life and fought against it. This boy...was incredibly stubborn...but he would agree to, so he will teach Kirito that he should've just agreed to him.

"Fine.",he said,"I will see you then when you die or when 4 years passed."

And with that, his body dissolved with pitch-black smoke.

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It was the seventh october now, the year being the one where Kirito had turned 16.

As promised, the Shinigami came again to the human realm, to now take him to his final destination. And even though Kirito knew that, he actually did the impossible: To build trust with death itself.

„You have changed.",he meant while looking at Kirito intensively. He did not have his chubby cheeks or that fairly small body anymore, but had grown up to a pretty mature boy. Kirito chuckled and replied with: „Well, you also changed a lot. I didn't know that Shinigamis also have some kind of age."

„Shinigamis grow up with their target. So it doesn't matter if you were twelve or sixty, Id always be the same age as you and look like it."

Quinella once told him about it. To get more comfortable with the target, she meant. He still couldn't understand but he didn't really question it any longer. More, he questioned what will happen to him when he breaks the rules the woman once told him.

„Rule number one",Quinella said,"Never kill the target. We are supposed to bring them to death, not to kill them."

"Shinigami, if you would take me now, how would I die?",the boy asked, looking outside his big window to look at the stars, who looked like white splatters on a white canvas.

"I'd drive you into suicide, probably.",he replied,"Either that or your sickness will kill you and I take you with me."

"Would I become a Shinigami like you? Or go to heaven or hell if that even exists?"

"I dont know. My only duty is to lead my targets to death."

Silence ensued.

"You know, I'd like best if you yourself just killed me...",Kirito mumbled.

The Shinigami did not answer to that.

„Rule number two: always hold the deadline!"

„I wonder why you dont have a weight, Shinigami." They were sitting on Kiritos bed, the human was currently taking his pills and swallowed them down while the blonde just watched him. Kirito tried to touch his shoulder which resulted that his hand went through it. He felt nothing, but the air.

„Well, Im not a human, so my body isn't either or not?"

„But you even have shadows!"

„Well, thats just a kind of Illusion. I actually don't even sit on the bed, I just float over it."

The Shinigami looked at the calendar on Kiritos desk, it was February, four months have already passed and he frowned a bit. He already pulled the deadline this far, in order to forget that he actually had to take his said target away from the human realm.

He looked at the wall, where many framed pictures where hanged. It showed Kirito in his very young age, with his parents and many kids in the same age as he was.

"Thats Asuna if you wanna know.",Kirito said to him, as he had read his mind,"I actually had a crush on her in Kindergarten, but we stayed friends till the end and that might be better this way."

"Do you still have contact with her?",the blonde asked where he got a nod from the target,"Yeah, I talk to her on the phone regularly and sometimes, she visits me. She lives in another town though after elementary school so she only comes here for a few months."

"Ah, I see.",the Shinigami said,"What about the girl with the glasses?"

"Oh! Thats Shino-Chan! I went with her...",he continued, blabbering about his many friends he had to cut ties with because of his damn sickness, that prisoned him constantly in his room.

Its a bit weird to think that death itself is curious to know more about his target.

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„Shinigami?",Kirito had whispered weakly.  „Hm?"  „Am I still going to die?"  Eugeo couldve said some sarcastic joke like: everyones gonna die sometime but instead he just nodded. As a response, he got a sigh from Kirito but then came back with a sudden statement:

„You're really pretty, you know that?"

„What?"

„You actually look more like an angel instead of a Shinigami.",Kirito admitted,"So I can't be afraid of you. Never."

Eugeo always thought he looked a bit too ordinary. Yes, his blonde hair and green eyes was something that not everyone had, bu surely did he not had the fairly pure face of Quinella or a radiant smile like Alice. So when he heard a compliment, much less from his supposed target, he felt warm somehow, and he didn't know why.

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"You once said that you grow with me, right? If so, how do you really look like?"

"Hm...I can't really tell you, to be honest."

"Don't tell me you actually look like those horrific creatures I have read in books!"

He chuckled, thinking about the many drawings the human have drawn them. It was quite funny to be honest, and he didn't know why Shinigamis like him were presented this way.

"No, don't worry. This is my real appearance. My appearance now and the one outside is the same. You know, the blonde hair and green eyes..."

"Man, I almost thought so...",Kirito gasped in relief,"But its unfair that a creature of death is that attractive..."

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One thing he also didnt know why he worried so much about his target, is why he felt fear towards the sick boy.  While he does admit that talking to him seems fun, as some days he showed him pictures of his friends and made him quite curious what Kirito had also archived in his life, or went with him for a walk while talking loudly about his interests, he couldn't help but panic whenever the boy woke up in the middle of the night and tried to breathe air, then reaching for his pills and the glass of water to swallow them and to calm down. And this happened more often, sometimes even twice at the same night.  Sometimes he tried to shake him when he wheezed in his sleep, or giving him the pills and water, but not only was his body not physical, but he couldn't grab something too so he couldn't do much but watch as Kirito always tried to grab the pills immediately in desperation.

And then one day, after Kirito continued to sleep peacefully, a spark crossed Eugeos mind.

I don't want him to die.

He had seen so much about Kirito. Hes a young boy who even after not joining school and isolating himself from his friends, still kept on living. He did not wait till death came to him, he rejected it as far as he could, his willpower so strong that it could even reach a nonexistent heart of a Shinigami, the death itself.

Why are people with such a burning passion those who die first?  Because probably, the brightest flame is the first one who goes off.

„Rule number three",the woman had said to him at last,"Never get attached to your target."

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One day, it was over for Kirito.

He gasped and wheezed after air as usual, but even more and it didn't got any better until he couldn't breathe anymore and fell on the bed, eyes still widened.  Eugeo shuddered and used his last chance to do something about it. It being to bring him back to life while his spirit was still active.

Because if Kirito wasn't next to him as a spirit as himself, he is somewhere still alive, fighting about it.  He was about to get closer to Kirito if his parents didn't barged in and immediately called the ambulance. He then only saw how in a few minutes, the boy was taken away by a car, driving to the next hospital to take care about him. He floated with the car that carried him and going through the car and looking at the boy, who now had a mask on his face, he was pretty sure that no care and treatment from the hospital can save him anymore. He might be alive somewhere, but it won't take long until he will die too.

So when Kirito was still put into the room, as expecting that the monitor showed a straight line that announced Kiritos death, he did not expect to cry. He did not expect to let tears fall down and to sob uncontrollably, some of these clear drops were falling onto Kiritos face when it actually shouldn't be possible. They were alone, the nurses on their way to call a doctor and collect and medicines and stuff, so he was glad that it was only Kirito and him now, even when nobody but the boy who had just died now could see him.

„I love you.",he said, finally realizing what he felt for him,"And I would do anything for you to keep living."

A Shinigami can control Life and Death, as they take living people to their final destination. But resurrecting someone had to pay a big price that no normal Shinigami would even think of. He already broke so many rules though, not only the three he was warned of, but also his limitations of his body, as he took the mask away and gave the boy a chaste kiss on his lips.

They were still warm, he felt it. He felt the pressure of his lips against his own and he himself didn't know how it was possible when his body shouldn't be physical. He had heard that a kiss can resurrect a human, but impossible when they don't have a real body of a human. He stopped questioning all that when the boy opened his eyes.

He was confused what happened, but more when he saw into the blondes face, still crying.

„Shinigami...?"

„Thank God you're alive."  With his physical body still granted, he took the black-haired boys hand with both of his hands and cried. He might not feel him any longer...or even see him when he returns back. So lets just have him this moment.

„Did you...?",Kirito asked, but stopped continuing his sentence. He felt fine, the pressure on his chest that followed him since he was born was all gone. He did not realize that he also began to cry, not knowing if it was because he realized that he was cured, a healthy boy now or because the Shinigami was crying.

„When do we see each other again?",he asked instead. Said person lifted his head up, looking into his face. They were both crying, tears staining their faces and noses, but they didn't care. „Who knows...maybe never again..."  And just when he said that, the pressure on his hand faded slowly, and so did the Shinigami himself. It was time.

„Live your life to the fullest Kirito...that is my only wish..."

„Shinigami..." 

„The next time we see each other again, call me by my name..." 

„W-Wha? Hey, wait! What is your name?!"

The Shinigami almost faded away, but managed to say one last word with a smile before Kirito was alone.

„Eugeo..."

And with that, he completely vanished into tiny bulbs of light, the only thing being Kirito crying into his hands which were connected with the other ones just a while ago. A tiny spark of light touched his skin of his hand before it faded too.

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„So...",Quinella asked him,"How did you manage to overcome the Shinigamis Nature and rewrite the fate of a supposed dead boy?"

Eugeo wiped his tears away, only to realize that they were gone long ago at the instant he came back here. But he still smiled and said:„Maybe I was human for a few minutes, Quinella."

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Kazuto Kirigaya became a healthy human, living very long and well, even when he turned ninety, with greyish hairs and living in a small house with only a dog. He was knitting a scarf for one of his grandchildren when right before him, an also old man appeared.

His face was also wrinkled like his, with grey strands and a crooked back, but his green eyes remained the same as in their youth.

„Im back, Kirito."

He had told his children, his grandchildren and his great grandchildren about the gentle Shinigami. So much, that they are probably tired of hearing it all over again. But he still kept telling them about it, hoping that this story will be kept and remembered.

Cause after all, it was about his first love.

„Welcome back, Eugeo."

And in the living room that seemed so lonely, the two of them embraced each other, finally reunited.

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AN: Thank you for reading my short Oneshot, it was very fun to write the ficlet of it and when editing it to a more detailed story! Leave a comment, that would enlighten me up very much!