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Mark watches with a torn heart at the boy who cries, yet again, the loss of another loved one. His normally open, warm, kind and friendly features twisting in one of sheer despair and sorrow, with tears streaking his anguish-flushed cheeks and soft but completely broken whimpers escaping his lips. All what Mark wants to do is touching the boy, comforting him as he pulls him closer in an embrace that will give the boy back the warmth he so much needs. Mark is suffering for the boy and the fact there’s nothing he can do to help because if he so dares to touch the boy, things will only get worse and Mark has done enough harm already.
The boy’s suffering is all Mark’s fault. He is the one taking one by one all the people that matter to the boy, and only because he wants to be around.
Selfishness.
Mark’s selfishness is what's causing so much grieve to the poor boy who is crying, once again, because someone he loves leaves before him.
“I’m sorry,” Mark whispers, clenching his hands that want to touch the boy so desperately.
Those words don’t carry how regretful Mark is, how bad he feels for causing so much pain to the poor boy. Yet, it’s not like Mark wanted to hurt the boy.
The first time Mark saw the boy was just because of a sick twist of fate. As an angel of death, Mark comes to the world of the living to collect the souls of those who are fated to die. It’s not his choice, he is told whom to come for, and then Mark just touches them, causes whatever has been already decided that will end the person’s life, and then Mark will take that soul with him. That’s, basically, his job.
That time Mark had to come for the boy’s best friend who was supposed to die in a car accident. A drunk driver who didn’t stop at the red light and the best friend losing his footing and ending up tripping when the car was coming. A fast, bone crushing impact that killed the best friend while he was still going all over the car, a lifeless mess in the air before colliding with the cold hard ground, with the boy’s screams resonating louder than the screeching of the tires on the asphalt.
Mark was the one who pushed the boy so he would trip and die how he was supposed to. Mark was the one who took the boy’s best friend.
For longer than Mark cares to track, he has done his job without regret, knowing it was the way it had to be and not doing his job only meant worse for the person and the ones around him. Not doing his job would cause a terrible paradox that would drag people who aren’t supposed to die yet.
And it would end him, as well.
Yet… when Mark saw the boy crying, running and desperately trying to get his best friend to answer him back, that was the first time Mark felt guilty. The horror and pain reflected in the young boy’s features crushed Mark’s heart who couldn’t move, just watching the boy grieving, pointlessly calling for an ambulance. Even when the soul of the best friend finally materialised next to the body Mark couldn’t move, couldn’t stop looking at the boy feeling sorry for causing him such pain.
In his guilt, Mark went back to the boy, watching him close as he grieved for his best friend. Mark learned the boy’s name was Jackson and he was a beautiful, kind, good and warm person who even in his own sorrow did his best to support his best friend’s family. And while watching Jackson, Mark fell in love.
Angels of death aren’t void of emotion unless they decide to, and Mark never wanted to give up on his emotions. They were never a problem for him, understanding his job and still cherish that human park of him, his human soul. Angels of death never linger on Earth too much as to actually develop motions for humans, not even long enough to feel sorry or sad for the ones who stay. Jackson was the first person that caught Mark’s attention since he became an angel of death, who knows how long ago. Angels of death don’t remember their human lives just in case they have to take the souls of those who they once knew, so Mark does not really know how long ago he was just a human like Jackson.
Due to this newborn feelings, Mark lingers on Earth more than he should, always around Jackson, watching him go through the stages of grieve until he’s doing well and his smiles are happy and honest again, and Mark falls more in love with him. Jackson beams with a light that is so beautiful and captivates Mark to no end. That light, however, blinds Mark and makes him careless, causing one too many accidents around Jackson. Luckily, they are accidental touches that don’t really take the live of those people but do traumatise Jackson who wonders why so much tragedy follows him recently.
And then Mark has to take another loved one, this time Jackson’s teacher and coach, someone who was like a father to Jackson. Mark only had to touch the man’s heart to cause the heart attack, and he feels so sorry for taking that soul knowing how much it’ll break Jackson.
And then Mark has to take Jackson’s cousin. Then the old lady from Jackson’s favourite restaurant of whom he was just so fond. Then the boy’s first love who wasn’t with Jackson at the moment but still struck the boy, hard. And then, after all those and to make it worse, Mark has to take Jackson’s grandfather’s soul.
Mark falls to his knees when he sees the pain in Jackson upon finding out, the way the boy screams and cries and for a second Mark almost touches Jackson, wanting to beg for forgiveness for taking away someone so precious to the boy. Mark stops himself only centimetres apart form Jackson’s skin.
It’s terrible, seeing the pain Mark is causing to the poor boy and the fact there’s nothing he can do to stop it. Even if Mark stays around, watching over Jackson, his presence doesn’t comfort the boy or anything. But Mark can’t leave Jackson’s side unless it’s to do his job, but somehow he always goes back to the boy.
Loving someone he can’t touch is so hard, loving the person he’s causing so much pain to is even harder. It makes Mark ache and double over with pain every time he has to take another loved one. He doesn’t even understand why it’s always him the one taking those people’s souls. There are countless angels of death, so why him? Why is Mark the one making Jackson so miserable?
When Mark is supposed to take Jackson’s mother’s soul, he can’t make himself move. Knowing what that will cause to Jackson makes Mark believe bearing the consequences will be better than taking the most important person in Jackson’s world. But not doing his job means Mark’s soul burns and slowly dies.
The end of a body is nothing compared with the end of a soul.
The pain, the agony has no precedent and no way to be compared, it is the most excruciating pain and if Mark does as much as to hesitate for a second, his soul starts to die and that suffering is enough to make him touch and take the soul.
Mark claims the soul of Jackson’s mother but he cries with his own pain and the pain Jackson’s feeling as he holds his mother’s hand on the hospital bed, begging her to be strong and hold on. Mark cries with sorrow and regret but he takes the soul while he hears Jackson’s heart and soul screaming in agony, breaking to the point of no repair.
Mark broke Jackson.
And it gets worse because Jackson can’t really recover from this loss, no matter how many times Mark apologises and whispers all his loved ones are all right, even better than they were. Nothing of that works as Jackson falls in a depression impossible to escape from. The life and light in the boy die and Mark is trembling with fear as he follows the boy to the Han River, watching the shell of the boy who once beamed with light, now contemplating the dark waters and longing for his own end.
And Mark knows. Mark knows he is the one who has to push Jackson over the edge and into the waters. Mark is supposed to take Jackson’s soul but he can’t.
He can’t.
Mark has taken enough from Jackson, he can’t continue doing this. He just can’t and no pain will make him push Jackson to end his life. Mark will not do it.
So he cries and screams in pain as his soul dies little by little with Jackson by his side, staring at the waters with lost eyes. Mark screams so loud and in so much pain even other angel of death comes, pitying him but taking over just to spare him.
“No, don’t take him!” Mark screams because even if he’s dying all over again, forever, he doesn’t want Jackson to die like this. “Please, not like this,” Mark cries but the other angel only shakes his head. “NO!”
The scream is pointless, the other angel presses his hand on Jackson’s back and pushes, and Jackson, who already gave up on everything, losing too many important people in too short amount of time, closes his eyes and lets gravity take him.
And then Mark is jumping after Jackson, as if that could do any difference. But Mark still jumps and screams for Jackson’s name who opens his eyes in the fall, as if he could hear his name being called.
Mark reaches Jackson before he hits the water, his own arms wrapping around the boy, shielding him with his own body and hugging him so tightly.
“I’m sorry,” Mark whispers, as they fall together in the water and it’s as they dive in that Jackson’s arms wrap around him too, sinking together deeper and deeper.
Jackson isn’t supposed to live further this point, if he so did then the consequences would be disastrous, but Mark won’t let Jackson die alone. The angel holds the boy until Jackson’s lungs are filled with water, until he loses consciousness, until the heart stops beating and ultimately the brain dies.
Mark never lets go of Jackson.
Not even when they touch bottom.
Not even when the stream takes them away.
Not even when they hit shore.
Not until Jackson’s soul materialises next to his own body and speaks up: “Who are you?”
It’s the first time his voice has been directed to Mark and it’s enough to make the angel look up to find the soul, as bright as Mark knew it had to be, staring down at him. But then the boy’s soul shivers when he spots his own body lying in Mark’s arms.
Mark finally stands up, blocking Jackson’s view. He needs to stop Jackson from seeing his own body so he won’t linger on Earth, filled with regret. That is too dangerous for a soul, they need to move fast.
Weak, with a burnt soul that stopped dying when he hugged Jackson, Mark finally whispers: “I’m sorry. For everything you’ve gone through, I’m really sorry.”
Jackson stares at Mark with a confused look, forgetting his body and what happened. Something that is natural for souls as they are not corporeal and their instinct is to leave everything behind and move on. Mark wishes there was more he could do, but he’ll have to leave that to the nature of souls. However, he now remembers he can touch Jackson, finally, so he steps closer and takes the boy’s soul’s hands, giving them a tight squeeze that surprise Jackson.
They are perfect in his own hands.
“I’m dead, right?” Jackson asks and Mark nods, so the boy presses his lips together, searching for the misery and fear he should feel after that, but as every soul, failing and learning the body he was so attached before was as ephemeral as the fluttering life of a butterfly. “Are you an angel? Did you come for me?” Mark nods again. “You look like an angel.”
It’s a smile, pure and kind, beautiful and like one that hasn’t touched Jackson’s lips in months. He smiles without the pain and grieve that’s made his body heavy for long. And it’s a smile for Mark that makes him believe it can actually heal his burnt soul.
“I’ll take you with the others,” Mark promises, still holding Jackson’s hands and never ready to let it go.
“And then?” Jackson asks, squeezing Mark’s hand and never looking away.
“Then I’ll never leave you alone,” the angel promises. I’ll made it up for all the pain I caused you, he adds in his thoughts, smiling tentatively.
Jackson smiles and nods, accepting that without a complaint and still lost in Mark’s eyes.
Only then Mark looks down at their entwined hands and realises they beam with the same light, as if they were made of the same, as if their souls were just part of the same whole. And as the angel stares at their hands he finally understands why. Why he was drawn to Jackson. Why it was him always the one to come for his loved ones. Why it was him who had to give Jackson the last touch.
Mark finally understands.