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At eleven o'clock sharp, exactly twenty-six minutes before his job was to be done, Langa manifested himself in the mortal world.
Clad in the same long, black cloak worn by all of his kin, he ascended from shadows cast by the faint light of the hospital room in which his charge lay motionless. With his hood pulled forward as far as it could go, leaving nothing but the lower half of his face exposed, he stuck close to the back wall, despite the fact that no human could see or sense his otherworldly presence anyway.
And there, he waited.
In twenty-five minutes he was to reap the life of a young male, left comatose following an accident with no chance of recovery. With the exception of such details he knew nothing about his ward; not his name, his place of birth, what languages he spoke or even where he lived. He was told nothing more than where to go and what to do with regards to this man's threads of fate, each strand still barely clinging to the near-lifeless soul that lay there before him.
But it's not as if those other details mattered to him anyway. After all, this was to be standard procedure; a reaping done the same way as the thousands of others he'd executed in the past, with no room for deviation or error.
At this man's fated time of death Langa would sever those wilted threads with one clean stroke of his scythe, before fading away again with the shadows. Every light and alarm in the room would come on to alert those who tended to this man to his final moments, but he would vanish just as effortlessly as he'd appeared in the first place, leaving no trace of his existence behind besides the corpse of a man who was destined to leave this world right alongside him.
His work would be done well before the clock struck midnight, and he would return to his own realm to await word of the next soul who would need his guidance from this world onto the next.
It was mundane work, and far from glamorous; a thankless job, truth be told. In fact, more often than not, he would be vilified by grieving loved ones, tortured souls unwittingly cursing him and his gods while their fists struck the ground, passing through his cloak without even knowing that he was right there to see it all.
But it's not as though he needed gratitude to spur his efforts. He was born into his role, created for only one purpose, and thus compelled to follow his instincts no matter who might feel the need to try and intervene.
Most days, he would retreat the moment his work was done, slipping away before he could find himself influenced by those mortal emotions. But every so often he'd be a hair too late, and he'd be forced to bear witness to the consequences of his actions, as inevitable as they were.
Some days, those actions were harder to bear than others. While mostly unfeeling, Langa had once learned the hard way that he had a soft spot for children, despite how little interest he had in ever caring for one himself. Regardless of what he did or didn't want, though, reaping such a young soul with so much life ahead of it was never the same after the events of that day.
As he hovered there watching the redheaded man in the bed across from him, he wondered if it might be the same – if he would struggle to take that soul away with him like so many others before it. While not exactly a child, this man was still young; fresh out of childhood, if he had to guess. Not entirely unlike himself, even if a reaper's existence doesn't quite follow the linear path that mortals' lives do.
He figured that if he were to walk the earth, he'd probably be about the same age as his charge.
That thought had him feeling curious for a change. He was intrigued by the idea of walking alongside this young man, and the sorts of things he could learn in doing so. Perhaps in another lifetime they could've been friends, attending the same school as one another, or by some chance maybe even bitter enemies – who could say?
It was nothing more than a fantasy, of course; born of his inability to show up right on time for anything. A harmless character flaw, he supposed, as even reapers weren't free from their gods' frivolous decisions regarding creation.
But he had plenty of time to waste yet before he was due to swing his scythe, and no reaper worth their salt would ever snap the threads of fate before it was necessary. Which meant that he had no reason not to spend his time daydreaming, or finding other ways to satisfy his sudden desire to know just a little bit more about the fiery young man who lay in that hospital bed.
‘Fiery' being an understatement. That brilliant red hair was unlike any Langa had seen before.
He wasn't sure why, but as he watched the mechanical rise and fall of that man's chest, he found himself feeling oddly… nostalgic, perhaps, although for what he couldn't say. It's not as though he had ever met this man before, as his kind have no business interfering with the lives of mortals. Their deaths, of course, yes – but only to do what had to be done, and nothing more.
This one, though – this redhead – had him thinking more about life than death. Something that rarely happened in all his solemn years, as he'd never experienced life for himself before. Death was all that he knew from the very moment he came to be.
Maybe it was nothing more than simple curiosity for that which he knew he couldn't have, but his restless thoughts soon pulled him from the shadows in which he stood, and without realizing what he was doing he drifted across the room until he halted at his ward's bedside.
When he snapped out of it he wondered if perhaps some part of him knew that coming closer would ease his hunger for knowledge. Or rather, that some part of him thought it might, as the more he stared down at that unmoving face, the more he found himself growing fascinated by it.
Specifically, he was fascinated by what secrets it held beneath those closed eyes and those firm-set lips.
A reaper's existence was rarely a pleasurable one, but sometimes he would find solace in studying the faces of those who would soon leave this world. They were always at peace, never staring back at him with sharp, watchful eyes or hurtful sneers like his resentful peers would. These passing humans were nothing but still and silent; never judging, never complaining.
As grim as it was, spending his time among the nearly-departed was about the only way he could find even a sliver of comfort amidst the longest days of his endless, immortal life.
If he could even call it that; life, that is.
Life was a word reserved for those who walked the earth; for those who felt the wind in their hair and the grass between their toes. It was for those who breathed, slept, and ate. It was for those who ran, jumped, and swam, or those who flew through the skies on wings; a product of their evolution rather than whatever unnatural force governed his own unsettling ability to levitate.
Life was for those who could grow. Not those who would only live in stagnation like himself.
It wasn't for those whose human-like bodies were nothing but a shell; a sad approximation of what mortal life looked like. It certainly wasn't for those who couldn't breathe or even stand upon the very earth in which all life was born from.
But overall, life was just a curious thing; something that Langa could never attain, no matter how many souls he carried between worlds as fruitless payment.
In a bid to satisfy that curiosity, he would sometimes study life itself. He would make his way to his wards' sides much like he had only moments ago, his cold, bare feet both so close yet so far from touching the floor as he went. His cloak would billow around him, moving as if it were carried by a steady breeze, and his scythe would wait at the ready, hovering at his back without even a hand raised to hold it there.
He appeared as and moved just like the reapers did in mortals' books; stories crafted for centuries now by humans who, once upon a time, must have somehow caught a glimpse of one of his kin.
But with eerie blue eyes he watched his redheaded charge with a gaze wholly unlike those in fairy tales. He didn't loom at the young man's side with the purpose of cruelly stealing life away from one who didn't deserve to lose it. He simply existed to do what was necessary, regardless of whether it was deemed right or wrong or whether it was even what he wanted for himself.
He'd never been allowed to make even one choice for himself; not one that would leave a lasting impact on anyone, at least. Dictating when he would show up to perform a reaping was a way for him to maintain some control; another of those small comforts that he'd managed to find for himself.
The man that he was to reap that night should've been no different than any other life he'd taken. He had a name, a story, and a reason for lying there in that bed with no viable path to recovery, deemed as such by both mortal physicians as well as the gods who ruled over death itself.
Yet something still compelled Langa to take a closer look, to let his eyes linger on that face a little longer than usual as if to sear it into the back of his mind. He wasn't sure that he could ever pinpoint what it was that sparked his interest, but something stirred within his chest when he studied that face, as if he'd suddenly grown a heart that didn't really mind what his eyes saw.
Could it have been fate that made him restless at the sight of this young man? Was the god who governed it so bored that they felt the need to toy with him instead of the humans for a change?
He didn't like that idea. He frowned, before shucking the hood of his cloak to try and let some of the heat in his flushed cheeks dissipate.
A clock hung upon the wall that he had just moved from, but he already knew how much time was left until he would need to take his scythe in hand. Nineteen minutes remained before this man would breathe his last, and yet those threads of fate that had begun to fray and snap seemed more interested in coiling around him than the one in which they belonged to.
They teased his cold skin like a breath of fresh air. It had been a long time since he felt anything against his skin – anything that wasn't his cloak or his hair, that is. He let his eyes slip shut so that he could bask in it for a moment, but it wasn't long before they opened again as he realized that he was wasting precious time; time that could've been better used to sate his burning curiosity.
He hadn't yet gleaned all he could from this young soul, despite how strangely feverish he felt when thinking about him. But there was so much more to see, and still so much more to know, and his curiosity wasn't something that was easily tamed by willful ignorance.
He found himself wanting to see those eyes; their colour and how they caught the light. He wanted to hear the young man's voice; to know if it was gruff or soft, or somewhere in between. He wanted to see what a smile might look like on those lips, or how those muscles would flex beneath warm skin if they weren't weighed down by the burden of such condemning injuries.
More importantly, he supposed, was the man's name. He wanted to know the young man's name.
Fortunately, that was much more easily attained than the rest of his silly whims. He turned to look over his shoulder, back in the direction of the far wall that bore the clock he had no need for, and there upon a whiteboard written in red marker were plenty of other things that he had no need for, such as the room number or the date, and even the cause of what had this man's mind locked in a snare.
But above it all was exactly what he sought, written larger and bolder than the rest. Four kanji in total, easily read by someone with as much experience in dealing with mortals as he had, each one written with great care so as not to give anyone the wrong idea.
Together, they read Reki. Kyan Reki.
Short and sweet, and easy enough to pronounce. It had a comfortable ring to it; the sort of name that would just roll off his tongue, although it didn't really matter as no living soul could hear him say it. Still, he tried anyway, speaking it quietly to himself if only to see how it felt.
He decided rather quickly that he didn't mind it all that much. It felt familiar, as if he were meant to learn it here and now, and to hold it within himself until the end of his days. It felt like a responsibility, or perhaps even a promise; like something he'd been entrusted with so as not to let the memories of this man slip away with the passage of time.
Why, though, he feared he might never know. Truthfully, there was nothing special about the man who lay before him. He was destined to die in seventeen minutes, and once the deed was done Langa would move right on to the next. It was a never ending cycle that he'd long since grown content with, as he had no choice but to accept it, and no human ever stood out to him in such a way that would inspire him to try and break that cycle.
But something about this one scared him. The mere sight of this redheaded man stirred something within himself that he'd never felt before; something dark, like a quiet rebellion against that which his gods had shaped him to do. It felt as wicked as it did good, and were he a more expressive man he figured he'd likely be smiling to himself because of it.
With one hand, he reached out to caress one of those limp threads of fate, holding it carefully in his palm so as not to break it too soon. If he could manage to break it at all, that is. With every precious second that passed, he found himself wondering if he might just surrender to that dark voice inside himself, as it only seemed to grow louder the longer he let his eyes rest upon that frail mortal body.
He didn't know what it would mean to ignore his purpose, though. What would happen to him if he were to let the clock run out – if he were to try and stitch such wilted threads back together again?
Restoring those threads would mean the end of his existence as he knew it, that much he understood. But what happened after that – when a reaper ceased to be – was something he couldn't comprehend. It was never spoken of, and never documented; a taboo, no doubt, and thus something to be avoided.
His kin certainly never liked to admit that such a thing had ever happened, or that it ever could happen. He wasn't even sure that his gods knew what happened after the loss of a reaper.
Perhaps they scrubbed that knowledge from existence so that no reaper could ever be tempted by it.
They were fools for doing so, though, if that were the case. It was all that Langa could think of now as he slid his fingers along that delicate thread, watching it fade in and out of sight as the boundary between worlds continued to weaken for his young ward. Fourteen minutes remained, yet the man was fading fast on his own, and Langa could only entertain thoughts of what might happen if he were to try and reject death itself for this one small, insignificant human life.
If he pulled it off – if this man's eyes could open to the world again – well, it would be what the mortals call a miracle, wouldn't it?
Did he want to be a proprietor of miracles, though, or did he just want to experiment? He'd never known himself to be this curious, but a fire burned within him that he couldn't seem to put out no matter how hard he tried. He wasn't even sure that he wanted to snuff it, either, although the rational part of his core told him insistently that he absolutely should.
But rationality be damned, he thought. This promised him something else he'd never felt before.
This promised to be fun.
He didn't want to liken himself to a god; toying with death as though he had any right to. But his gods weren't the type to watch over their adjutants' shoulders at every waking moment, and he figured that if he could wield the power to cut down life and carry a soul away from its body, then he should have the right to test his limits in the opposite direction, too.
When he really thought about it, he was just one reaper in a vast, miserable sea of many. He was every bit as insignificant as the human life before him that was hanging in the balance. There were plenty more of his kind to pick up the slack if he were to disappear for his crimes.
He only wished that he knew where he would disappear to.
The time for worrying about such things had passed, though, as he had only twelve minutes left to figure out how he would stitch those threads back together again, if that were his choice. He was still undecided, although taking his fate into his own hands seemed a far preferable choice to that which would have him following orders as mindlessly as he'd been doing for decades.
He wondered if waiting would be all that was necessary. Would it really be so easy as passing the appointed time of death without swinging his scythe? No, it couldn't be – there would be far more instances of reapers not doing what they were born to do if that were the case. There had to be more to it than simply ignoring what must be done.
Suddenly, he didn't want to think too deeply about what would happen to a soul if it weren't harvested on time by someone like him. Ignoring a mortal on their deathbed without finding a way to repair their threads instead might leave them in limbo, and that sounded like a fate worse than death.
Was that how ghosts were born, though, he wondered? Not that it really mattered to him, as his goal was to save a life, not to create more unnecessary and – quite frankly – annoying apparitions.
Perhaps the key to what he needed was hidden within his charge; something tucked away inside the young man's past that might reveal what was missing. Fate was a volatile thing and thus subject to change, whether through natural forces or otherwise, which meant that if he were to spin the threads the right way then they may very well weave together stronger than they ever were before.
Of course, he was only speculating. But his own fate seemed to be bending in strange ways, and as a result, he no longer believed that it was entirely out of his hands. He was quickly learning that the universe wasn't so set-in-stone as he'd been told it was, and he decided that it was high time he chose his own path for a change, wherever it might take him.
It was all so much easier to think about than to actually do, though. The man in the bed before him lay in tatters, his skin marred and his bones brittle. His body had given up on him as much as his mind had, and without a competent vessel to return to, Langa worried that the soul he planned to rescue might not be all that viable after all.
But the word miracle suddenly came to mind once more. That word existed for a reason, because phenomena that couldn't be explained had happened before the mortals' very eyes countless times before, and such things could only be caused by beings like himself; immortals that existed outside the boundaries of this world.
It made sense that mending the threads of fate would more than likely repair the body as well, or at least restore what the knowledge and abilities of mortals could not. It would be exactly that – a miracle – something that no human could ever explain.
He could save this man. He knew he could, because such miracles had happened before. The humans knew as much – so why couldn't he?
Gently, he let the thread in his palm fall slack, and he watched as it fluttered down to the bed beside the body it was tethered to. He knew what he had to do, or at least what he needed in order to find what was missing – something that his kin had never wanted to admit was even tangible.
Though, looking back, it was likely that they never perceived such a thing to be tangible in the first place.
He was nervous, though. Another new sensation. He'd never touched a human before, but he figured that he could. He wanted to, and that single desire in itself was what made things so different from all the rest of the times he'd stood before a dying mortal.
Most reapers would never have any need, want, or reason to lay a hand on their charges. They would simply swing their scythes, severing the last ties those human souls had left to this world, before vanishing like a breath of stale air. Only death would remain in their wake, and the humans who lay deceased in the aftermath never knew what it was that took them.
Langa never imagined what might happen if he were to touch. He'd never had to imagine it, because he never knew he could. Humans always phased through him, not the other way around.
He suddenly realized that he'd never wanted anything so badly in his life. He needed to know what a human felt like; what that connection to a living being meant for someone like him.
One pale hand reached out, trembling as though it were overcome with very human emotions, and he laid it down gently upon the man's chest, pressing delicate fingertips to the soft fabric of the standard-issue hospital gown he wore. He'd expected to find himself sinking right through it, bed and all, but to his surprise, his hand remained exactly where he'd placed it.
And then he felt something.
His hand rose and fell with the steady rhythm of the redhead's breaths, and he watched utterly enraptured as he actually existed for once; as though he were finally standing right where he belonged.
His cold skin warmed in almost an instant, sending pleasant heat throughout his lifeless body, and that brief moment of contact he had with that human, however small it was, suddenly revealed to him a lifetime's worth of memories, all compacted into a body that was now too weak to bear them.
He saw glimpses of family dinners, where a redheaded boy smiled widely through tears as he bravely ate his meal with a few baby teeth missing. He saw the first red scrapes on tough little knees after a clumsy fall from a bicycle, and similar ones later on from a battered and over-used skateboard, too.
He saw poor grades in classes that failed to interest this vibrant soul who cared so much more for his passions than what society told him he should learn, and he soon saw the first signs of heartbreak after an unrequited middle school crush confession turned sour.
He saw someone who struggled to figure out where he belonged, what he liked, and what he wanted for himself. Someone who should've fit right in wherever he landed, as that smile he wore seemed enough to brighten any room he set foot in.
And in between it all, scattered here and there among the torrent of memories, he saw a young man who grappled day in and day out with his anxieties; baseless fears that took hold of him during his otherwise proudest moments. He saw someone who gave so much love, yet received so little in return from those around him who weren't his closest family.
He saw someone who deserved to be loved. Someone who ran out of time to find that love.
The soul he touched was so inexplicably warm, and he discovered that he really didn't want to let go. He tipped his head down and he closed his eyes, solemnly savouring the moment he had with this beautiful young man, not realizing that his hand had fallen further until his palm lay flat upon his ward's chest.
In that moment, Langa felt everything that he never knew he wanted to feel. He felt as though he knew this man – Reki, he remembered – as if he'd always been a part of his life. He'd learned everything there was to know about his charge in an instant, and he felt every emotion just as strongly as he imagined Reki had, once upon a time. Back when Reki could feel things.
When he opened his eyes again he felt tears run along his lashes, and as they landed upon the clean white sheets below, they remained, spreading wetness throughout the fabric like spider webs.
His presence in this world suddenly felt justified, as though he were meant to be there at Reki's side just as any other grieving loved one would be. However his purpose, as he'd always known it, did not. Knowing that he was created only to end life cut so much deeper now that he stared it in the face, wanting desperately to take hold of even a fraction of it for himself.
He'd only just learned what it must feel like to live, and already he was forced to make a decision that would almost certainly spell the end for him, meaning that he couldn't live on the way he'd hoped to alongside the very person who made him feel that way.
He knew that, though, going into it. Even if he'd forgotten for a moment.
It was painful to think about. He'd experienced so many emotions all at once, so many things that were once foreign to him. Overwhelmed was an understatement, but it was the only word he could think of to sum up what he'd been feeling. He still had a task to carry out, though; one that only he could, and the more he focused on what it would mean for the man who lay before him the clearer his thoughts became.
Reki's life so far had been a whirlwind, so to speak, with plenty of ups and downs. There were good times and bad, all of which had quickly flooded Langa's own soul, if he could even call it that. But one thing stood out among the rest; a blank spot in the colourful sea that was this young man's too-short life. One thing that Langa knew he could seize and manipulate until he had moulded it into what those miserable threads needed most.
If love was what this man's soul needed to thrive, then loved he would be.
It wasn't as though it would be hard. Langa had only known love for a matter of a few seconds, but it came into him so quickly and so ruthlessly that he had no choice but to accept it. He didn't spare any time thinking about whether or not he would feel this way if he'd chosen another human to save, as time was something he knew he didn't have and some twist of fate had sent him down this path with Reki, specifically, in the first place.
His chest suddenly did that strange thing again – that quiver, like Reki's heart must've done when it first felt what love must have been. But this time, his face didn't sour. He raised a hand to his chest, the one that didn't currently occupy Reki's as he was loath to remove it for any reason, and he pressed it there as if to tame a restless heartbeat that he never knew he had.
He then moved that hand through wild red hair, and he laughed quietly to himself as he was met with resistance. It was soft yet somehow rough at the same time, and it wound around each of his fingers like a warm embrace, welcoming his touch like nothing ever had before.
He slid his palm down lower, fitting it against one of Reki's cheeks, and he cradled that motionless face as though it were the most precious thing he'd ever held. And it was, when he really thought about it. His scythe was the only other thing he'd grasped before, and it was hardly precious to him in any way.
He memorized the way that Reki felt, as he'd decided that if his choices that night were to fail, he wouldn't want to forget even a single thing about him. Reki had changed his existence – or his life, rather – for the better, and he wasn't about to let that happiness that he'd found for himself slip away along with whoever's life was about to be lost.
He loved that man. He loved Reki – that human man, who he'd known for all of twenty-five minutes yet also somehow his entire life.
That wandering hand of his moved once more, though only by a few inches, stopping once his fingers curled around the mask that covered Reki's nose and mouth. He knew that it provided Reki with air that he struggled to take in on his own, being only a few hours out of surgery, but given that he'd been sentenced to death at this time long ago, Langa wasn't terribly worried about removing it.
Not when he was the one who was entirely responsible for whether Reki lived or died.
He set the mask aside, and he ran the pad of his thumb along the redhead's lower lip, tracing a mouth that he'd become quite fascinated with. The backs of his fingers caressed Reki's jawline before unfurling, and he held his ward's face in much the same way as he had before, with his other hand almost reluctantly leaving Reki's chest to join it on the other side.
Between his trembling palms he now held the most important person he'd ever met. And when that instinct inside himself began to burn hot, clouding his mind with thoughts of nothing but death as the clock struck eleven twenty-six, he ignored it.
Instead of following the only set of rules he'd ever known, he closed the distance between himself and Reki, pressing a gentle first kiss into the only man he knew he'd ever love.
He felt weightless, as though the heavy burden of his scythe were no more, but in its place his upper back steadily began to burn hotter than his instincts ever had. He winced as he withdrew, but that look of pain he'd written across his face faded fast when he stared down into a pair of warm eyes, looking back up at him – or rather, through him – like glassy amber.
Reki was dazed and lost, and thoroughly exhausted. But he was awake, and he was alive; so much more alive than he'd been when Langa first laid eyes on him.
Frightened, Langa raised a hand, reaching out toward Reki in an effort to find that connection he'd made just moments ago. But his hand wavered and soon fell slowly to his side when those eyes didn't track his movement. Instead, they blinked slowly as they moved around the room, taking in the sight of everything that suddenly beeped and flashed around the two of them; everything that wasn't Langa.
He knew that he would never be seen by Reki, and yet he never could've prepared himself for how much that truth would hurt. What he didn't understand, though, was why he was still there. He'd done what shouldn't have been done, and yet there he was, forced to hover at Reki's side as the redhead rose from near-death to enjoy a life that he could only see from the outside.
He never imagined that loving someone could hurt so much. He should've disappeared by now.
Instead, he watched as a man and a woman – likely husband and wife – as well as an elderly woman and three young girls all filed into the room, hot on the heels of the nurses who came to tend those loud machines. Machines that were meant to go off once the man in that bed had died rather than come back to them all in good health.
Langa didn't regret what he'd done, though. The clock struck eleven twenty-seven, and Reki still lived. He'd done what he set out to do after all that deliberation, and he couldn't be more proud of himself for saving such a deserving soul.
But truth be told, he didn't want to see this. He'd been prepared to fade from existence, leaving Reki to live a long life where he'd have plenty of time to find the love he needed from someone who could actually spend all that time with him. Langa didn't want to be reduced to nothing more than a spectator, watching from behind glass like the very apparitions he'd spoken so poorly of earlier.
Was that it, then? Were reapers destined for this upon breaking the taboo – a life of seeing, yet never being seen? Never having a place to return to despite having a place in which they came from?
He didn't want to watch as Reki someday fell in love with someone who wasn't him.
Effortlessly, he crawled up onto the bed, and he sat upon the foot of it with his legs dangling over the edge. He watched in silence as Reki's family crowded around him, showering him with all of the love that he wished he could give, too, their hands resting on the young man's shoulders, head, and hands. Every part of Reki that Langa longed to feel once more even when he knew that his hand would only pass right through it all.
It didn't matter how badly he wanted to touch. He knew that he couldn't, as he was no longer a reaper. His scythe was gone from his back, and he didn't want to see what terrible marks must have remained in its place; those awful burns that still throbbed along his shoulder blades.
He didn't know what he was now, and he didn't think he would ever know. He couldn't stomach the thought of spending the rest of his existence trying to find out, either.
He wondered if he'd found hell on earth. It certainly felt like it, at least.
For a moment he thought about laying down and sinking right through Reki to curl up on that deathbed. He wondered what it might be like to stay there for a while, or even for eternity, perhaps. He pondered the possibility of dying, too, though he shuddered at the thought of trying to find a way to do so.
But then he heard a voice. Reki's voice, specifically, answering a question that was asked of him by his mother; one that Langa didn't quite catch, as all that mattered to him at the time was Reki.
“It felt like… someone was watching over me.”
That voice was music to his ears; the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard, and not just because he'd never truly listened to it before.
It spoke words that resonated with him; words that made him feel warm all over. It reminded him of what it felt like when he thought he was alive, and in an instant he made up his mind to chase that high once more, no matter how reckless it could turn out to be.
He wanted to hear more. He wanted to study Reki's face as he spoke, and to know how those lips moved as he thought pitifully about kissing them once more.
“Feels like… they're still here now,” Reki murmured.
There it was – that flutter in his chest again.
Reki could feel him, even if he couldn't see him.
Stunned, Langa watched as Reki raised a hand, stretching it out slowly toward the end of the bed where he sat. Those fingers twitched as though they longed to take hold of something – something that they must've known was there – but Langa hesitated to meet Reki halfway.
He wanted so desperately to take that hand into his grasp, but he feared that he would slip right through, and Reki would never know that he'd even tried. He didn't want to leave Reki there like that, though, either – hanging in the balance like his life had just a short time ago.
At an impasse, he decided to think for a moment. And as precious as his time still was, he was grateful that he'd taken a second to clear his thoughts, as it quickly proved worthwhile.
He realized that ever since the moment he'd pulled Reki from the depths of near-death he'd been blinded by his sorrow; a sadness that kept him from also realizing that he absolutely could still touch. He hadn't phased through the bed that he sat upon, after all, when he certainly would have if he were still the unfeeling reaper that he'd been all this time.
Overcome with fear, he simply hadn't tried to lay a hand on Reki since they parted.
With courage in his heart – a heart that he truly believed he'd come to possess – he raised a hand that shook much more fiercely than ever before. He reached out toward Reki, and his fingers seemed to slip in between each of the redhead's own as if they were meant to be there, locking the two of them together in a way that no one else could see.
Not even Reki could see it, when he thought about it. But Reki could feel it, and that mattered more to him in that moment than anything else in the world.
He saw it written on the redhead's weary face; a slight widening of his eyes as a cool breeze passed through his fingers, and a clench of his jaw as he swallowed a lump in his throat. Reki knew of his presence, even if he didn't know what it was that he touched – and it didn't matter anyway, as even Langa still didn't know what he was.
He wasn't sure he needed to know, though. He was bound to Reki, and that was enough, even if the thought of losing him one day to someone else still stung the corners of his eyes.
“Someone watching over you? What do you think it was?”
A quiet, bewildered voice that Langa didn't recognize. Reki's mother, most likely.
But that didn't matter either. Nothing mattered besides the soft look on Reki's face and the colour in his cheeks, and the way he ran the pad of his thumb in slow strokes along his palm in a bid to remember what it felt like to hold something that wasn't truly there.
It filled Langa with a sense of elation that he didn't think he was capable of. Reki wanted to remember his touch, and that was something that he would remember for the rest of his days.
“Don't know… a guardian angel, maybe,” Reki mumbled. “It's nice. Kinda… warm, I think.”
Warm. A word used often around Reki, he'd noticed.
He decided that no other word fit Reki quite as well as that one did.
It described the way his aching shoulders felt, too, as Reki continued to speak. The searing stripes along his back calmed with each word until he felt nothing more than a gentle pulse, as though there was something hiding beneath the surface that was begging to break free; something far less damning than a crooked wooden pole with a sharp hook attached to the end of it.
It felt as though he was changing, shifting with each word that fell from Reki's lips, as if that young human somehow held more power over him than any of his gods ever had.
He began to wonder if perhaps it was Reki's belief in what he felt – that gentle slip of their hands against one another – that tethered him there when he should've faded away. If Reki had decided that what guided him back from the light was something far less sinister than a reaper, then maybe that was all that Langa needed in order to stay.
It seemed that humans had far more governance after all. With nothing more than a few simple words, Reki had made Langa feel as though he mattered, giving him a new purpose that he felt was far more worthy of upholding than the last – and far more rewarding, too.
While he wasn't given the sort of love in return that he'd been hoping for, Langa found something else that was worth treasuring all the same. He'd watched a smouldering flame burn bright once more, nurtured by a selfless sacrifice that would only continue to grow more selfless as time went on, as Reki would never truly know that he was there watching him, guiding him, and loving him.
But he decided that he was content with that. As long as he was free to give Reki as much love as he deserved, he knew that in time it would reflect back upon himself, just as the light that radiated from his white wings reflected back in Reki's brilliant smile.
A guardian angel, then, was it? He could live with that.