Noa woke up the following morning feeling groggy and hungover. She clutched her head feeling the after effects of all the alcohol she had consumed the previous night. Noa vaguely remembered venturing through the park but couldn't remember how she ended up getting home. Suddenly the image of a large pale man with long hair appeared in her mind as she wondered whether the vision she just had was a dream. 

"Unfortunately it is not a  dream but a reality." A  deep voice said. 

Startled, Noa saw the same man she saw in her dream appear before her as he observed her disheveled appearance, a look of displeasure plastered across his face. 

"AAAH!" Noa yelled as she shrunk back in her covers. 

Shijin frowned as he watched the foolish human go under the covers in a sad attempt to hide. 

"Are all humans this loud and moronic so early in the morning?" He wondered out loud. 

Noa peeked her little head over the covers as she shot him a glare, clearly offended by his words. 

Shijin had to suppress a laugh. "Are you finally ready to face the music now?" He asked while clearing his throat. 

Seeing the calm expression on his face made her thumping heart grow louder but she weirdly felt like she wasn't in any danger with the god of death around. So she got herself out of her covers and sat upright nodding her head. She was finally ready to listen to what he had to say. 

"Good," He said, an amused glint in his eyes. 

"Do you remember what happened last night?" He asked her seriously. It would be annoying if he had to repeat everything he had said to her and he had a feeling this human was even slower in the morning than she was when she was drunk. 

Noa nodded her head once again. Shijin shot her another look of displeasure as he sneered. "Have you lost your ability to speak as well? Use your words human." 

"Y-Yes I remember." She hurriedly said. 

"Good, that saves me a lot of energy. We are now bonded and we need to figure out how we are going to go about things from now on. I am stuck here on earth and cannot be away from you for long periods of time. It is an unfortunate situation but alas, we have no choice but to live with it." He sighed. 

There was a brief moment of silence between the two as they each got lost in their own thoughts. Everything about this was weird but Noa was glad that she wasn't stuck with a violent god. Though he was a god of something that terrified her, he wasn't unbearable to be around and she hoped he felt the same about her. 

Since they were going to be together from now on, it wouldn't hurt to get to know each other either. So Noa took a deep breath and decided to speak to him seriously. 

"Um..god of death?" She timidly asked. 

Shijin turned around to face the human, surprised that she had addressed him willingly. 

"Death is fine." 

Her head shot up, "What?" 

"You can refer to me as Death from now on. God of death seems too…long and formal." 

"Oh, right. Then D-Death. I was wondering how I even ended up finding your ring that night. Do you perhaps come to earth often?" 

Shijin raised an eyebrow. "Oh? So you can actually think logically. Good for you!" He said sarcastically, causing Noa to frown. 

This guy is kind of a jerk. 

"To answer your question, yes I do come down to earth at times. Humans tend to make excellent drinks." He admitted. 

This seemed to surprise Noa. "I didn't know gods could drink." 

"Even though we might be deities, we still like to indulge ourselves sometimes. If you had to manage an entire domain and make sure everything runs smoothly, you would want to have a drink or two to maintain your sanity would you not?" 

"I-I guess that makes sense." 

"Right. Anything else you would like to ask?" 

"Um, you said you manage a domain. As a god of death what do you do exactly?" 

"I make sure that every soul brought to me gets to where they need to go. I also make sure that the people who are destined to die meet their ends and ensure that death is possible…amongst other things." 

"It looks like you have an important job, won't it be a problem if you're away?" 

Shijin looked at Noa with intensity and only answered her question after a while. 

"Yes, well normally this would be a huge cause for concern, but since there are others who can take care of that issue for me, I do not have much to worry about." 

Well, there's Baku but he should not bother me for a while. 

"I see. Must be tough managing death and all since humans are dying everyday." 

Shijin felt a little tinge in his chest when he heard her words but decided to ignore the strange feeling. 

"Hmm." Was all he said. 

"So you can't leave earth until I die, correct?" 

"That is correct." 

"That will take at least fifty or so years though?! You mean we will have to be together that entire time?" 

Shijin sighed. "That is how it works." 

Noa looked down, a complicated expression on her face. "Look, it is not as if I like this situation either, but this is the only way to break the bond, with your death, and since unfortunately you are not destined to die anytime soon, this is how things are going to have to be." 

"Really? I won't be dying anytime soon?" 

"Yes. Not for a while." 


"Then wouldn't that be a problem for you? Being away for fifty years…" 

"Time works differently for us gods. What might seem like years to you humans is merely a fraction of time for us. Fifty years will pass in a blink of an eye." 

Noa nodded her head. A part of her wished time could work like that for humans too. If it did, she wouldn't have to deal with the feeling of grief for so long. 

"Are you sure there's no other way?" She tentatively asked him. 

"Ha, do you want to get rid of me that badly? I already told you there is no other way, if there was, I would have gladly taken it." 

Sensing the coldness in his tone, Noa flinched and quickly apologized realizing she might've offended him. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way." 

"...It is fine. Do you not need to start your day now?" 

Noa looked at the time on her phone and saw it was already noon. Though she didn't have work this weekend, she still needed to run some errands so she quickly got out of bed and started to get ready. 

Shijin just sat there and watched the strange human's antics getting more and more amused. 

Unfortunately the two hadn't realized that there was indeed another method to breaking the bond and had Shijin been made aware of this, he would've never told Noa that he'd gladly take that option over the first one.