It's probably forbidden to do so, but then there are so many things already denied me that I just can't seem to care. My very existence is taboo; my conception was a breach of heavenly law, my birth was a disaster and my every breathing moment is an embarrassment to the Jade Emperor. It's pointless to care about all of that; things are as they are and people expect aberrant behaviour from an aberration, as long as it stays out of sight.

What people don't want to see, they will not see -- so when I reach for the sun, the only one trying to stop me is the sun itself.

Himself.

Konzen Douji of the Lotus Family.

He's an important kami in the heavenly bureaucracy, so I don't see him very often. Most of the time he keeps himself holed up in his office, moving sheets of paper from one stack to the next, meticulously stamping his approval or disapproval upon perfect whites. His red ink marks never bleed from the edges; they are pristine and always presicely aligned with the borders and the text . . . Konzen Douji has made an art form of marking paper.

Why does he hide his radiance behind those walls? Why will he only allow his artist's fingers the touch of dry, sterile vellum? Perhaps he will tell me one night. That's when I seek him out -- when I can move freely through the shadows, seen only by those who make it their business to see. He never welcomes me when I visit, but nor does he ever welcome anyone else. For whatever reason, he keeps himself from all company and treats everyone with the same cool distance.

Konzen is the only one in Heaven now who treats me no different from the rest. That alone would keep me coming back to him.

That, and because he is who he is, no one will do to him what they did to her . . . Rinrei, whom I didn't even get to kiss before they took her away and cast her out, leaving me to endure in a world turned gray. Endure, until I saw Konzen for the first time and looked into brilliantly violet eyes, uncaring and frozen -- and yet it was as if light speared though me, bringing back colour in its wake.

Konzen is Kannon's nephew and favourite. Konzen is scornful, has no friends, is a loner. Konzen has no attachments and shuns intimacy like the plague.

That is why I can safely seek him out in his rooms, wish him good night as I blow out his lamp, and watch over him as he sleeps.