Chapter Text
The loud sound of a gurney echoes the walls of the hospital. A small little girl with her mouth covered with a ventilator. As she is rushed to the operating room. A man, wearing all black seemingly misplaced, can be seen right across in the operating room. Looming, inconspicuous, he stands still. Watching the doctors scramble to save the girl’s life. In a split second, the girl is now standing next to him. A young small child, no older than 4.
She watches as they try to revive her body. She looks up at the man, curious. She peeks through watching closely, observing her surroundings, confusion, worry, and wonder all racing in her mind.
He smiles, “Hello, I’m Taesan.”
She stares for a moment, and then in her small voice says, “Are you like my guardian angel? My mommy says it's meant to protect me, but you don’t have wings?”
Taesan bends down to her level before answering, “I’m an angel of death, I live to guide people to the afterlife.” The girl tilts her head before staring at the doctors surrounding her lifeless corpse. Taesan doesn’t dare react, he doesn’t make a reaction, his expression feigns distant.
“Would my mommy be okay with me leaving?” Taesan nodded slowly before offering his hand for them to walk together. The little girl takes his hand as he guides her into the light. The other world, heaven mayhaps, Taesan would never know, he’s never been there nor shall he ever be.
This is a regular day, it’s a job he accomplishes. It’s nothing special, it’s painfully ordinary, it’s a loop, consistent but solid. The repetition is suffocating. The purpose lives on, and yet, it feels all the more boring. Bland and uninspiring, it makes you question why it can never be different.
As the sun rises a group of men in all black gather by the beach, just silent and waiting. Taesan stands with them before making his way to a nearby bench. Jaehyun sits beside him. “Something bothering you?” Jaehyun questions. Taesan takes a moment to answer, “Do you ever wish we could be seen? Do you ever wish that maybe there’s more to life than just… this?”
Jaehyun doesn’t answer right away, he thinks, “I do wish, sometimes, but this is our life, we can’t just walk away from what we’re supposed to do and supposed to be, especially with what we do.” He spoke with such calmness and understanding, Taesan didn’t know what to say, he just pressed his lips together.
He wonders. He ponders how normal life is. The wind in his hair, the taste of food in his mouth, the feeling of touch on his skin, and to be seen. He wonders how it’s like to be acknowledged, not just to be like the air that circulates but to be able to feel like he belonged, like he mattered. Taesan’s words caught in the foreground of his mind and his throat before pushing the thoughts down. It’s impossible, he isn’t seen, he can’t be seen, he won’t be seen.
Angels weren’t meant to feel anything. Not the touch, the taste, the smell, and the feeling of anything. They were just souls, lifeless. Someone to carry out the tasks at hand. But even if they looked human, they weren’t.
They stroll around the streets, unseen. Simple moments, just silence, waiting for the call to happen. Escorting humans to the afterlife while they themselves never experience such. No sense of warmth, closure, nor freedom, just a mindless loop of subordination and submission. The life built for them so perfectly that freedom was never meant to exist.
Angels commonly find themselves in hospitals, waiting for the next soul they’ll deliver. The word deliver never felt right for Taesan, it didn’t feel like that. To him, they weren’t delivering, they never even knew where the souls would go, heaven, hell, purgatory, it never made the difference to them. Just a bright light at the end of life, a life that Taesan wishes he’d earn someday. Learn the ways of life, and live without the shackles of the responsibility he has to carry.
Taesan wanders around, as medical officials pace around, not acknowledging him. His senses heighten for a moment, before he is brought outside of the ER of the hospital. He watches as the doctors try to resuscitate a patient. But his eyes move towards something more profound. He knew that being an angel means, you can’t feel love nor attraction, you’re not supposed to form attachments, especially with humans. They can’t see you nor feel you, you’re just there to escort them when they die. That’s just how it works.
However, something tugs, his eyes feel drawn to something. Or rather, someone. He’s pretty, Taesan thinks. He observes him as this someone uses a defibrillator, trying to resuscitate the patient in front of him. Something shifts in the wind, different and somehow superior to his sanity. Fate seems to collide together, a wave of something unexplainable.
Taesan feels his senses tingle again though. The patient on the table is already beside him. Dead. His heart gives up. It stops beating, it gives up, signalling the loss of another life.
“What happened?” The patient asks before looking at the sight infront of him, “Is that me?” Taesan tucks his hands in his pockets.
Taesan nods before answering, “Yes, your time has come.” He pulls one hand from his pocket and signals the soul to turn and follow him to the light. Taesan guides him, walking with him side by side as the man asks. He manages to not show emotion, yet he feels overtaken, by an emotion stronger than he is.
The man strolls with him, stopping near the bright life before asking, “Who are you anyway?”
“I am an angel of death.” A cursed man. No love, no life, just someone who longs for a hope that’ll never come.
Nothing became out of the ordinary, yet Taesan’s mind was racing as he sat at the edge of a building. His eyes look up at the horizon of the world that has cursed him, and stares at the sun as if taunting it to burn him alive. He kicks his feet at the edge of the building, the bustling streets holler below him. The world on his fingertips, life at the edge of the world. And somehow, his mind is strolling elsewhere.
Taesan can’t seem to get the image of that doctor out of his head, maybe he’s getting too lightheaded, but he's never felt this way before. He watches the sunset, no wind, and no frigidness around him, stiff and blank. Simply fading into nothingness. He spins his legs back, now facing the doors down the building, and considers. Taesan musters his courage, walking down the stairs, calming himself down.
He finds himself wandering that same hospital. Just observing, nothing much surrounding him. It’s dark, the night is upon them, but angels don’t sleep, they just live at all hours. Taesan strolls the hallways, he hears nurses and doctors alike, moving between rooms, talking amongst themselves, terms he doesn’t fully understand but have heard enough for familiarity. The machines beep around him as he leans on the wall of an empty hallway. An unfinished construction part of the hospital, somehow feeding more life than ever.
Taesan revels in the silence before someone’s voice breaks it. “Uhm, hello? Are you here for someone?” he asks. Taesan doesn’t acknowledge it. He couldn’t possibly be talking to him.
“Uh, excuse me? Are you here to visit a patient Sir?” He asks again, Taesan pauses. He is talking to him. “This place is off limits, it’s dangerous.”
He can see him. And moreover, he’s the pretty doctor. He looked even more mesmerizing up close.
“Are you- are you talking to me?” He asks.
“Yes Sir, who else would I be talking to?” The pretty doctor asks, slightly embarrassed and confused.
“I’m sorry, I just-” Taesan tries to continue. “Wait, why are you here if it’s off limits?”
The doctor’s mouth opens then closes, he considers, “Uh, that is none of your business. Are you perhaps here for Choi Junhyeon?” The doctor clears before asking another question.
“Oh uhm yes!” Taesan answers, trying to sound inconspicuous.
“Well, I’m his doctor, hi, I’m Doctor Park, but it seems like we’re at similar ages, so you can just call me Sungho if you’d like.” Sungho smiled, sweet and pretty, Taesan felt his heart beat for the first time. “And you are?” Sungho asked again.
“Yeah uhm, hi, I’m Taesan.” He answered, pushing his hands into his pockets, to try to lessen his heart rate. He tries to calm the feeling that is pulsing through his body. A rush of excitement within the unexpected feels even more fulfilling.
Sungho nodded in acknowledgement. “Well Taesan, usually at this hour, we don’t advise visitors, so I’d recommend you to head home now, it’s quite late already.”
Taesan glanced at the clock reading 1:43 am, realizing Sungho’s point. “Ah, yes right away, I apologize for taking your time.” He bows in apology before inching himself further.
Sungho just smiles back at him. “No worries at all, stay safe on your way home.” His smile feels somehow genuine yet Taesan doesn’t have time to contemplate such right now. Taesan makes his exit quite hastily, trying to make sense of what just happened.
Someone saw him. And that someone just so happened to be someone who’s already making him feel things he shouldn’t be feeling. A pretty doctor he saw once. The pretty doctor who can see him and hear him. The exception. The one to make his world warmer. The one who would turn it upside down. He rushes out, going back to the beach, waiting for the sunrise. A new beginning now for his life.
Taesan finds his way back to the beach where the angels of death gather, trying to find Jaehyun. When he sees him, he practically grips on his shoulders before declaring, “Someone saw me.”
Jaehyun stares at him skeptically, “What do you mean?” A mix of confusion and worry flash in his eyes.
“A human acknowledged me.” Taesan says exasperated, his body full of rush and adrenaline bursting inside of him.
“Taesan, that’s impossible.” Jaehyun declares. He didn’t believe a word of it. It was unreal, it was meant to be an incomprehensible feat.
“I know, I know, I thought that too but… I’m so drawn to him, I feel…. I don’t know how to feel anything. It just feels so real.” Taesan says, as if as he’s saying it, revelations keep happening to him. “He feels real, I feel like I’m on cloud 9.”
“Taesan, you can’t assure that something like this is even permanent, nothing is permanent. When you’re an angel of death, you lose nothing, but you also gain nothing. That’s what we do, it’s why we exist. This isn’t the reason, it might be dangerous.” Jaehyun tries to snap Taesan out of his trance, this out of body experience, it was unreasonable. It was unreal. It was simply impossible.
“You don’t understand, for once, I understand how it feels.” Taesan says, trying to justify his emotions. “I’ve never felt this before Jaehyun… you’ve got to believe me.”
“I know I don’t understand, but we are physically incapable of those things, those feelings, everything.” Jaehyun placed his hands on Taesan’s shoulder, staring him right in his eyes. But Jaehyun saw it. Something he’d never seen before.
Longing. Yearning. Wanting.
Jaehyun saw the passion, the heart, and the soul he was willing to lay on the line for this. For the one in a million, an impossible heart. Something even the divine rules couldn’t separate. His body language, his aura, and the look in his eyes cemented all of it. Taesan was willing to give it, all for nothing.
Taesan wanted the feeling, wanted freedom, and wanted love. For once, he wanted something to fight for. His passions have been ignited. A fire no man can put out.
“You can’t. We’re not built to. We escort souls Taesan, you shouldn’t…” Jaehyun holds him by his shoulders, trying to give reason.
“But what if this is what I’m meant to be? What if him seeing me means something? Something God wants me to figure out. What if this is the sign? I can’t lose that.” Taesan stands his ground, still dazed. He’s talking too much, he’s being sloppy with his movements and words. He is becoming something more than he can, beyond what he can recognize anymore.
“I’m gonna see him again tomorrow.” Taesan states like a man on a mission.
“You’re going to hurt yourself looking for someone you can’t have Taesan.” Jaehyun tries again.
“We’ll see,” Taesan looks at the sun, with determination. “Maybe it’ll be different with him.” He smiles, basking in the sunrise he has to watch every morning. The sun shall be hope, and the moon shall be passion. Taesan wishes to fulfill both with the shine in the sky.
Maybe someday, he’d be free and with life. In ways he’d never understand. Love will be his. His heart will soar. The world would be temporary, but this one would be permanent. I just want him to know who I am.
This is the exception. The bleed for the final feeling of life.