Lio

Lio is a work in progress.

He is the love interest/future husband of Valent

Generally, Lio has a reserved personality. Like any other person, he takes it upon himself to help others in need as a natural part of his morals. He can't help but to go out of his way to help others and put smiles on their faces. And when he's not helping people, he's quietly keeping to himself. 

However, before the start of the story, Lio's personality was the complete opposite. In his high school/young adult stage, he was ruthless, arrogant, and only sought to put people down. Like the popular kid of a classroom, everyone would fear him and conform to what he said, and he enjoyed it. Getting into fights, trouble, and mischief (this is what his scars came from.) But an incident happened in his life that caused him to see himself from a different perspective, and he made the decision to change. He's currently still coming out of that phase, trying to be a better person, focus on the future, and leave the past behind. 

In the beginning of the story, he is an agnostic atheist with no interest in religion whatsoever. If anything, he resented it and saw it as an absurd fairy tale. "How can so many people be so brainwashed," he asked himself, confident in his scientific knowledge. But even so, he let others have and enjoy their beliefs as long as they didn't harm others. He'd convinced himself that whether hell and heaven existed or not, he'd stay within this "neutral ground." "After all, what's God ever done for me?" 

But somehow (i havent come up with a reason yet,) he comes cross the highly-esteemed Exorcist Church in his state and attends it regularly. At this point, he finds himself interested in becoming an exorcist. This is where he meets Valent, on duty, in her natural environment. She is appointed to be his teacher.

In the months to follow, Lio observes the demonstrations his skilled teacher provides and tries his hand at exorcising, but with little luck. At his current level, he could make demons manifest in a person, but couldn't cast them out. Valent always came to finish the jobs for him. Seeing her skill, wisdom, and prowess, Lio had a strong admiration for her. This admiration evolved into romantic feelings that he would grow to suppress. He was somewhat educated on the main rules of exorcists, and Clause 41 stated that pro exorcists were not legally allowed to date or marry. Besides, he told himself she was way out of his league anyway, and he left those feelings alone.

As time goes on and his exorcist abilities improve, Lio hangs around his teacher more and more, and so his affection for her grows. He never expected to be attracted to someone's character to this extent. It takes a long time for the two to get closer, but eventually it gets to the point where they can call each other friends and visit one another's houses every once in a while. 

After hearing her story, he seeks an awakening like hers that would give him the complete faith he needed and he makes it his goal. Valent has high hopes for him and believes he can certainly do it if he has the resolve, and after discovering he had feelings for her, that's exactly what she looks for in him. In the beginning, she was unsure of whether she'd want to pursue him, being that her past relationship had only resulted in immense hurt and trauma. The scars hadn't faded, and she didn't find herself interested in another boyfriend quite yet. But she pushed through her fears and doubts, and she gave Lio a chance and evaluate him for what she wanted in a partner. 

He'd discover it wasn't at all easy to tickle her fancy. Understandably, she held her standards very high. There was only a thin margin that a male could fit into to satisfy her enough to be taken as a romantic partner. But in truth, these standards were only equal to the ways in which she lived. They had nothing to do with appearance, he only had to prove he really wanted change, and attain the wisdom she had. It was all about her principles. "Does he live by scripture? Does he love God? Does he love himself?"

She wouldn't tell Lio, but she knew of his feelings for her. She would only silently watch his actions and listen to his words. If he proved himself to be anything like Jake, she would have to break his heart. Multiple times, she left the opportunity for Lio to admit he treated her differently than he did other females, but he denied it, friend-zoning himself every time out of panic. For example, after a whole day of hearing compliments from him, she laughs and says, "You're pretty generous with the compliments, huh?" Afraid that she noticed and he could get a hard slap on the cheek like the guys that were flirting with her, he panicked and made up some excuse to answer her. Then he didn't compliment her again for the rest of the day and remained timid, holding his tongue on a lot of things he would normally say, as if he were walking on eggshells to avoid seeming flirtatious and offending her.

Story TO BE CONTINUED