#storyseriesoflove

[moonlightjongin]

Storge (Jongin’s Series Of Love)

♡ Pairing -- Kim Jongin x Reader ♡ Genre -- Supernatural, Fluff, Angst ♡ AUs -- Guardian Angel!AU, Heaven!AU ♡ Description -- (concept) ‘Storge’ is the Greek word for the natural affection people feel for those closest to them. Storge is a love that exists between parents and their children but can go beyond this, storge can also be displayed in companions, and exceptionally close friends. It is said that storge is a casual form of love usually based in memories; storge is an underlying love driven by the desire to compassionately care for another. (summary) ...Your Guardian Angel Jongin, who has been guiding you from afar all this while, hopes with everything in him that he’s done a good job with that, vowing to continue doing so as you take upon yourself a very new challenge, working alongside him in the realms of aether. ♡ Wordcount -- 11,414 words. ♡ Warnings -- Non-descriptive mentions of dying, descriptions of grief, blood/injuries. ♡ A/N -- Feedback is very welcome and very appreciated. ♡

Main Masterlist || Series Of Love Masterlist || 🏹 also in the series... Storge (familial love; natural affection). Philautia (self love). Philia (platonic love; the love of friendship). Ludus (playful love; uncommitted love). Pragma (enduring love; practical love). Eros (passionate, sensual love). Agape (unconditional love). Mania (obsessive love).

 When Jongin first lay his eyes on you, they had brimmed with tears yet to spill, a warmth coursing through him that threatened to engulf each atom of his being. The most gentle smile graced his lips as he watched you grip your mother's finger with your tiny hand, placing his own, much larger hand against his chest. He proceeded to exhale one deep, heavy breath, the tenderness of the moment having been too much for him to take in that the thoughtlessly effortless and wholly necessary function of being -- breath -- felt like it were suddenly a world away, entirely out of reach.

Like you. Though separated by several dimensions, realms and perceptions, in that moment Jongin had wanted nothing more than to whisk you up into his own arms and cradle you gently to his chest, rock you back and forth until the confusion and unrivalled chaos of coming into existence settled.

He'd heard numerous tales of the intensity of the moment, every Guardian Angel had. Of the honor of being assigned one's very own human to watch over, protect and guide to the best of their ability. But nothing could have prepared him for the sheer gush of love and amazement he'd felt as it truly dawned on him, that finally, after all the years of preparation and intensive training, he had you.

As much as he'd assisted and offered humanity a helping hand in guidance over the course of his own existence, he was finally taking his very first step into fulfilling the sole purpose he had as a Guardian Angel.

True as it were that he didn't know all there was to know about you and had, still, a long journey ahead with you, it was as if the previous woes of separation that had been dragging him into a deep pit of anxiety and despair whenever he'd overhear a fellow Guardian Angel gush about their Human -- as if the awful, nagging question of when hadn't already been creeping into his own thoughts during the nondescript, menial tasks of his day as it were -- when would he be allocated his own human to watch over, when would he be allowed onto the most defining chapter and journey of his existence, all but washed away.

The timing must've been divine, because it led him to being assigned you.

 And truly, even though he had much to learn about you, much to learn through you, still, he already knew he wouldn't exchange you for the world.

With the intensity of the feeling coming onto him this strongly, already, the joy and pride burning through him, singeing itself into his very bones, he wondered if this first encounter with you would be the peak emotionality of the experience, if from this moment forward, his emotions would settle into a feeling much more contained, calm, like the lapping waves of the deepest, wisest ocean against its much cherished shorelines; perhaps in a manner of knowing similar to the way his wings would flutter against his shoulder blades with such natural ease, the internal process having ingrained itself into his very essence after a lifetime of being directed on how to do so by Jongin himself.  

Until the next day hit. Then the next month. And endlessly he'd find himself bathing in a feeling of such pride, of the most gentle affection and adoration, an unfathomable joy every time you so much as blinked, or made a movement that showcased your awareness of your existence to your parents -- who, as he'd observed -- were quite the turbulent pair within the vicinity of each other, which all but seemed to dissolve when their eyes fell onto you, the apple of their eyes, the highlight of their day.

He was a sobbing mess when you said your first word, when you took your first step. He'd never had the best control over his emotions, which was something his fellow angels would chuckle at and tease him about from time to time, telling him he'd been cut from a much more sensitive end of the cloth than they had, but he surely hadn't cried as much in all his years as he did the first few years of your life. ...And this was only from the joys of the experience.

He daren't even contemplate the fabled sadness that humanity had also been blessed, or perhaps cursed with. Time was vastly different for the two of you, the distance between your realms wasn't quantifiable in human terms and an absolute impossibility for you to breach on your end, one with a catch on his own. Though he could visit you, he'd never be able to be visible to you, unless you well and truly believed in him and could sense his presence. Guardian Angels were told to not get their expectations and hopes up about that because humans mostly called upon their Guardian Angels in times of desperation and grief.

In the vast majority of cases it was a feeble and half-hearted call at that, and as humanity had never been taught that there exist definite connections such as this -- that of a human and their Guardian Angel -- they never viewed it as a possibility for themselves, besides being a last resort in reference of what they believed to be a religious fable or fairy tale that evidently had no true basis in reality.

Guardian Angels were fiercely warned about the repercussions of causing such stress in humans, just so they could interact face to face with their human or humans in general, and it could result in them losing both their connection to their human and their status as a Guardian Angel.

Jongin was coming to you from a place of utmost care, protection and devotion, he felt, so he would never do anything to place you in harms way, jeopardize your bond, nor did he ever want to see you sad. He'd been told to prepare himself for it, because the human sphere of emotion was truly volatile at the best of times and the vast majority of humans would go on to face many ups and downs during their time on the earthly plane, but even so, he knew he would find ways to comfort you from afar and lend a helping hand in any form he, as your Guardian Angel, had been allocated and allowed.

 The earliest months of your youth passed smoothly and to Jongin, you were a blissful assignment, so full of joy and wonderment about the world around you, that the thoughts of any sad times you may have been on the path to encounter slipped to the very backs of his mind.

Until that changed in one swift moment at eight months old, as your mother stormed into your room in a haphazard disarray, mascara lining her cheeks, screaming obscenities at your father in the living room, as she pulled you from your crib, disturbing you into a startled cry in an instant, and marched back to face your father head on. Knowing all he could do to protect you in this moment in time was to wrap you in a sheen of protective, healing light and energy, Jongin watched with bated breath as your own cries eventually lessened, however, he had no way of telling you how your world was about to change, and neither did your parents, you were in no way able to understand the severity of the situation. Frankly, neither was Jongin.

It was a bitingly cold, bitter blue morning when your mother pulled up at the airport, and an even colder night, clouds heavy with rain, when you arrived in Paris, completely unaware this journey had been a one-way trip, for the both of you. Your mother had met someone months prior, a Parisian man of much renown, and before they even realized what was hitting them, sparks flew, and in their lovestruck daze, your mother accepted this man's advances behind your father's back, delighting in the excitement he brought to her difficult circumstances, her failing marriage.

Through his rage and hatred, which Jongin felt viscerally and had to carefully view as to not singe himself, your father demanded you be left with him if your mother preferred to ‘gallivant around Paris with her new lover’, mouth poisoned with the most vicious of insults, telling her she'd destroyed the sanctity of marriage. To which she replied, bitterly, "wherever had it ever been, with you?".  Neither cried, as behind the rage and resentment, they felt a wave of relief and ease wash over them, realizing they had freed themselves from the shackles of unhappiness they were currently causing themselves, even if the method of doing so held the many immoral tenets it did.

But you were a different topic to them, entirely. A bitter, relentless battle. They would go on to spend years vying for sole custody of you, years vying to tie you solely to either Korea or France, your father losing sleep over it, nearly falling into debt because of it. Though you'd flitted between both countries like a homeless butterfly during this, the court eventually ruled in your mother's favor, perhaps because of her lover's influence and seemingly ever increasing bank balance, but that didn't mean you never got to see your biological father again. Some summer and winter breaks were spent in Korea. There was also this fascinating invention called a smartphone that allowed you two to videocall as often as you could.

Eventually, your father moved on, as well, with a kind-hearted, gentle lady who would treat you with nothing but respect, though still wearied of overstepping any boundaries. Unlike on your mother's end, no half-siblings were added into the equation through your father's newfound love.  

Settling in took a bit of getting used to, at first. You worked hard at your French, practising most often through your stepfather; a lean, well put together man, who offered you day trips and homemade bread dipped in the finest of olive oils, and would eventually go on to buy you a grand piano, which had been your first love, prior to meeting your soul mate in the violin.

He was insanely musically inclined himself, and picked up on your talents early, something you feel eternally grateful for. And as initially awkward as the relationship had been, you began to find a solace in your stepfather, in his ability to stop arguments before they stewed and simmered and boiled over into something much greater than they were destined. He treated you as equally he did the children he'd go on to parent with your mother, considering you one of them. That wasn't as easy for you, considering you loved your biological father as much as you loved your mother, and you would only get to see him a few times a year in person, but eventually you grew fond of having two fathers, so to speak. It was especially fun having siblings, and not being the only child, any longer.

The first seed of confusion was planted within you, when your mother crouched beside your bed on the evening of a stormy Thursday night in June, sobbing, as she proceeded to tell you just how much she wished she had've met your stepfather first. You pretended to be asleep, your back towards her. She didn't see how your brows furrowed softly, as she'd then go on to tell you how you were her only saving grace but the shame ate her within, how your grandmother wanted nothing to do with her after the divorce. The fact she had children with two men. But she made it clear that night that if she had the choice between the two, your father and your stepfather, she'd have chosen your stepfather. It confused you because where would that place you on this spectrum? She didn't specify besides letting you know she loved you and she'd never regret you. But if she could, would she want you to be borne to your stepfather too? You tried not to think too hard about it. Tried not to wonder if your father felt the same, but with his new partner.

The reason behind your first time crying yourself to sleep was because of school. The even more confusing, terrifying realization that now, in this entirely new country, nobody looked like you, nobody sounded like you, nobody ate the same foods you did, a situation you initially thought was a point of celebration, how within you existed a vast piece of knowing of another part of the world, the unification of cultures and experiences, but not everyone seemed to agree with that. And though you did as much as you could to avoid these people's harsh, pointed gazes, it seemed like they'd find a new difference to point out everyday, until you hid the depth of your heritage behind their own, and didn't bring it up in conversation unless it was brought up first, which tore into your spirit and cracked your heart greatly.

Be it only a select few who acted this way with you, Jongin would still watch on everyday, painstakingly wishing he could just intervene, show you that you didn't have to take this treatment from anyone, ever. He knew some experiences and findings were your own to discover, but that didn't stop him from intervening as slyly and delicately as he could, such as blowing the main perpetrator's completed homework sheet out of his binder and ensuring it fell far away and that it happened gently enough to not alert him. He saw your own eyes flit to it for a second, and usually you'd react, likely hand it back to the person regardless of how they'd been treating you, but this time you blinked, a moment's movement, and decided not to.

Which was good enough for Jongin.  Minor instances like this would persist any time the main perpetrator acted up and though he would still sneer at you from time to time, his acts of violence stopped flat when the mother of a fellow student told his mother about the way her son had been terrorizing his classes, how he'd been terrorizing fellow students, her own child included. Seemingly, his mother's grounding of him paired with her taking away his prized possessions and making him write a hand written apology to each and every student he'd tormented as well as having to read it in front of the class to them, seemed to do the trick.

You'd long since lost interest in any of that, however, having found yourself in the music room in your spare time, drinking up each and every note, learning everything you could.  By this point, your French had improved to the point you were finally contemplating calling yourself bilingual, but music was a language within itself, and you were starting to realize your fluency in it came before any spoken tongue, as much love as you had for both Korean and French at this stage. Music... felt freeing. Like an adventure and home all in one. A safe sanctuary and a push outside of your comfort zone all the same.

Jongin watched every moment, every fear, frustration, woe and setback on your path to becoming the renowned and famed violinist you now are, experiencing all these emotions alongside you, crying with you, worrying with you. He watched every triumph, celebration and gleeful cause of enjoyment also, celebrating alongside you, even though you couldn't see him. Sometimes he felt sure you could at least feel him.

And how proud of you he was. How proud of you he'd always be.

   Jongin's fingers thread through his hair as he lets out one, long exhale. The outward breath releasing all the stresses of his day, however minor they may have been in the grand scheme of things. He straightens his posture as he gently rolls up his daily task scroll, watching the enchanted piece of parchment glisten as he does so, the neat, cursive lettering slowly disappearing within itself as he ties a bow over it and brushes it off to his side. His days are jam-packed from the moment he awakens from his 'rest', though not at all necessary for his kind, it certainly helps to quicken any necessary healing process, prevent fatigue and reinforce routine.

Today had been a much lighter workload than usual, and he wonders if he's been allocated some semblance of free time to simply enjoy this defining moment of your life. Your first broadcasted concert, nationwide. In a venue you'd thought you'd only ever dream of performing in.

Strangely, despite how huge today is for you, he feels peaceful, oddly serene. You'll do well, he feels so within every fibre of his being.

Truthfully, as much as he'd convinced himself he'd been prepared for this, for everything it would entail to take on his duty as a Guardian Angel, he had, for a long time, dismayed of this -- of watching over someone who would never know of him or his existence, never feel his presence, never engage in conversation with him, but over the years, the feeling simply simmered into something else, shifted into a much gentler, warmer understanding, unconditional in its marker.

As much as he would still love to be able to openly converse with you, give you a warm helping -- corporeal -- hand whenever you needed it and remind you that within you existed all you needed to achieve all you had ever wanted, the truth was, you didn't have to know him, openly call to him and rely on him for your bond to legitimately feel as real, corporeal, precious and necessary as it was.

Sure, the bittersweet element would always exist, but everyday, his heart swells with joy and pride from simply knowing you, from having been entrusted with the honor of being your Guardian Angel. He hears of it often, hears fellow Guardian Angels sing the praises of their humans from the highest corners of the heavens, witnesses the jovial steps a Guardian Angel will take when they've finished their daily contact with their human, hears it in lulling wisp of their words, however soft, it's hard to miss the protective layer these words will be wrapped in; the innate knowledge that if a Guardian Angel had a life to give, there lay no doubt that they would give it to ensure the safety of their human in a mere heartbeat.

Truly, through all of this, Jongin feels he's lucked out with you.

 Jongin leaves his work desk and decides to dress for the day ahead, slipping into a sheer, glittering pink ensemble, a lot freer than his usual attire, though still as outwardly ethereal. By the time he's ready, considering the intricacy of angelic clothing, with all of its buttons and laces, you will be thirty minutes away from pulling up at your destination. Though extensively separated, the nerves and excitement bubbling within you are also washing off on him, though he feels that the excitement outweighs the nervousness in this case. You'll do so well, he knows it. Today will be unlike any other, it will be a night to remember. The day, the evening, the night everything you've worked so hard for becomes yours.  

He'll watch every second of it, he's vowed to. But just as he's about to finish buttoning his much too intricate shirt, a flash of light catches his attention, which makes him look away for a split second. Thinking nothing of it, he turns back to his table, glancing down at his most frequented corner of the only world he's ever known.  

Before a silence washes over the room. Though everything looks as it should, there's been a stark change in the atmosphere. There's nothing to be heard, except for the even sound of his breath, nothing to feel but the suddenly deafening thunder of his own heartbeat. When it hits him hard and all at once how unusual this silence is, he only just picks up on how dark his surroundings are becoming, how they're beginning to blur into each other like they were never separated to begin with, before it all fades to black.

"What--?" He starts, upon reawakening, before a harrowing realization hits. This wasn't normal.

"No," Jongin chokes out. "No, no, no. That can't be." But he can't hear you, can't sense you and certainly can't see you right now. It's a mere ten minutes until your performance if his calculations are correct, and yet here he is, still not ready, presently having no idea what it is that is happening in his realm. Power outages were extremely infrequent, infrequent enough that a guardian angel could be taken aback by the unusualness of them, but why now? Why today, on the most important, defining moment of your life?

Jongin's thoughts are running wild, a frenzied energy overwhelms him as he contemplates what's happening. Why can't he move? Why is this ever deepening darkness swallowing him whole, why is the world he knows blurring within itself and most importantly... where are you?

Finally, realization hits.

In a wave that threatens to engulf the entirety of his being whole. The entirety of heaven's being, he feels.

He hears the sound before he truly understands what is happening, hears the glass shattering like it's right there in front of him digging into his own features and clawing away at his own flesh, hears the cheers of the fans you've accumulated over the years silencing, before they become shrill gasps and pained cries and screams, hears the sound of hundreds if not thousands of cameras clicking before they also fizzle out into the stark understanding and realization that something isn't right.

...Then it's chaos.

The sound of you being rushed to the hospital, of your mother's, stepfather and half-siblings' sobs and screams. Doctors and nurses pleading with them, telling them that they'd do all they could, just to, please, please let them work.

"A drunk driver," the nurse eventually whispers, though Jongin swore he hadn't missed a moment, the nurse's words are what break through the debilitating wave of agony that's drowned him, seemingly muted everything around him. Though her tone is stable, trained, she knows of you, she knew what day this was for you, it's a blatantly harrowing statement for her to make, but that knowledge doesn't comfort Jongin. "I'm sorry."

 No one. No one, between land nor sea, no one was expecting this. And especially not Jongin. The room of imprisonment is in a disarray, his arms are thick, wet with the blood he's somehow managed to etch and tear out of his supposedly unbreakable vessel in the hopes of identifying and locating the exit of this blatant room of imprisonment he's been forced into. And it'll continue; he'll force and tear his way out of any forceful holding that his higher ups try and keep him in if it continues to mean no news of what's happening with and to you, where, how and what will come next of it.

Caring little that his arms are lined with self inflicted etchings, dismissing a pain that begins to seep its way through him that he can't remember feeling for at least several millennia, knowing it can't even begin to compare to what you just went through. How you didn't even arrive to the biggest show of your life, the turning point of your career, the day that defined the rest of your life -- your entire future.

Gone, in an instant. Head on in a collision no one saw coming. Not even your Guardian Angel, who prided himself on his knowing of all things you.

He catches his frazzled reflection in the long, windy mirror in front of him and screams, a fraction of a second passing before the mirror itself shatters into a thousand pieces before him. He contemplates picking up one of the shards and carving his way out of the room of holding, but before he even has chance the glass morphs and moulds into a fine, sand-like substance, disappearing in between the space of his toes.

Finally, comes a knock. Minutes, hours, days, had they passed? He doesn't know. The silence outside of his inner and outer turmoil has persisted, his thundering heartbeat and deafening sobs serving as the only indicator of the time between.

"Jongin?"

"Leave me," he chokes. Simply sitting. Blatantly the room of holding had different laws than both heaven and earth, it seemed to be a room of his own making, a room he could change the dimensions of just by the depth of his feeling, his agony. So something as simple as sitting should be fine, should it not?

Not that he'd cared if the ground swallowed him whole either, at the present moment in time. Maybe any moment from here on out.

When he can taper into the connection you share -- fuzzy, muted and agonizing as it currently is, he watches the world mourn, but he feels it pales in comparison to his own grief, the unfamiliar feeling of sentience, self hatred, anger. An anger that burrows deep and cements itself inside him, demands to be felt. He screams, cries and kicks for all his might, but it won't change what happened to you. It won't allow him to live the day over and do everything in and outside of his power to bring you back. Here he was, as your Guardian Angel, and yet even he couldn't protect you, stop this atrocious crash from taking place?

The room shifts again, but Jongin doesn't bother to take any note of its changes until lights are pushing through his self inflicted darkness and blinding him. He curls into a ball, but refuses to close his eyes, not caring about the damage these lights may cause him, preferring the blindness to be his, if it comes to that, than yours. If there were a way to exchange his eyes for yours, his internal processes for your own, his own beating heart for yours, there wouldn't even be a question.

You'd be here right now. Alive.

What would heaven expect of him now? How dare they?

 Moments, hours, days, it's one of the three, he knows that much, but he's done with pretending he cares to differentiate right now or ever again. There's a creasing, crinkling sound, akin to the sound of movement, albeit angelic.

The being places itself beside Jongin, who refuses to look up, caring not about the consequences right now. If ever again. What did any of it mean, anymore? What did any of it matter, without you, his sole purpose for existing, the one being above all else he had to keep safe and protect... gone in a instant. How could anyone look him in the eye again, if he were so useless as to not be able to predict this when he had the encyclopedia of all things you tucked away in his shirt's pocket, embedded into his own, horribly, selfishly beating heart.

Yours wouldn't beat again, would it?

Finally, after what must feel like an eternity to the being, but can't possibly compete with the eternity of agony Jongin's going through, he forces his head upwards meeting eyes with a messenger-in-training, a small, fluttery being, clad in blue-white robes. Their expression indiscernible, yet seemingly prepared for an outburst.

He hoped they wouldn't get one and he'd apologize in advance, but he had no notebook of heavenly principles and elements to follow in a situation like this, no guidebook on how to react when his sole reason for being had been taken from him with no warning.  

Instead, a millennia's knowledge on how to be a good soldier, how to have emotion but not too much, an innate agonizing realization of how he'll more than likely be expected to report back to his desk and record everything after the period of grief heaven's so 'graciously' granting him ends. Somehow be expected to continue existing without you.

How?

"It was not just her," the messenger-in-training cuts straight to the point, their body language telling him they're not here for a fight, and are genuinely hoping not to have to go on the defensive, and simply here to deliver the message. "That is why you could not interfere."

And blatantly why he'd been so at ease, having had his senses numbed so he couldn't pick up on any change in the atmosphere, sense this collision prior to it taking place.

Jongin says nothing. Jongin doesn't move. He's not sure where he is or even how this place exists, but suspended space or not, he's managed to convince himself it's a room, that there's a floor, objects, glaring overhead lights, that currently he's sitting, and the patch of ground his eyes are honed in on is truly, somehow there. The mirror's gone, but that had been there, too. So had you, once.

"Understandably you wish for me to leave you be, but--" The messenger-in-training won't meet Jongin's gaze directly. "I must inform you."

Five minutes pass. Jongin says nothing.  

"Will you speak?" The messenger-in-training asks. "Is there anything you wish to ask?"

It's at this moment the messenger-in-training notices the trail of blood that surrounds their own higher up, which results in a wince. They say nothing, but the miniscule moment doesn't go amiss to Jongin. How he wished for the messenger's naivety at this moment, their lack of understanding of a bond like this. Just bright hope for their future journey and development. Their eternity. Turn back, the grief within him wants to scream. Ask for another journey, another placement within heaven. This is your future.

But he can't. He can't because he knows that he'd exchange everything if it meant having you to watch over, again. How could he knock this naive present day messenger away from the most defining aspect of their existence, the one thing a Guardian Angel desires and hopes for above all else? Even if this present moment in time feels like a slow, torturous death of the most unspeakable kind, still, nothing in heaven compares to the bond you share, nothing in heaven can compete. Nothing in heaven could ever hope to compete. Perhaps that's why he stays silent.

"...And what happens now?"

"I though you would never ask." The messenger-in-training smiles here, a smile Jongin can't even begin to comprehend. His fellow Guardian Angels used to say he never stopped. Smiling, that is. Now he wonders if he'll ever smile again. "It is the most unusual happening, sire. Y/N..."

Jongin winces at the use of your name. Deeper than the messenger-in-training had prior. He wills himself not to fall apart, crumble into sand like the mirror had with him, however long ago that had been.

As if nothing is wrong, the messenger-in-training continues, "she will arrive in a day or two. Here, in heaven. Human time, of course."

As if the messenger is playing a cruel joke, Jongin stay quiet. He locks eyes with the messenger, the pain swirling in them so visceral, the messenger has to look away to compose them self.  

"Here?" He finally chokes out.

"Here," they confirm. "To be trained under you. Your journey is not over. Not that any of us expected it to be."

The pained cry that threatens to swallow the room whole results in confusion on the expression of the messenger-in-training but they daren't press Jongin on the matter. So much so that when he requests, possibly in the smallest voice he's capable of mustering, "leave me," the request is met.

"But before I leave, you must be back in your quarters before she arrives, you are aware of that?"

 Waves crash against a bleached white shore, the air cool against Jongin's skin, an unruly lock of his hair slapping against his forehead with every other gust of wind that comes his way, but he stay still as a rock, posture straighter than ever. Waiting.

Some angelic beings chose differently than Jongin. Some chose not to guide humanity, some chose to watch over earth itself, some chose to upkeep the heavens. It has been said that some heavenly souls chose to incarnate as human themselves, to then come back once their time was up on the earthly plane.

Surely, two of those three paths had their ups and downs also, but if Jongin's sure of anything, he's sure they're not expected to hold up and keep face in the position he currently is. He's sure they're not expected to stand strong and tidy when their whole world has been taken from them, the very ground they're used to standing on, pulled from underneath them. He hasn't measured the days... in days. Hasn't looked at a clock since, hasn't taken note of the changes in the daylight, the night sky.

Maybe you'll be the only one to understand what he's currently feeling, in the instance this was what you chose.  But he knows within himself, even if he can't confide in anyone else about it, that you didn't choose this. And if you didn't choose this, Jongin finds no other alternative explanation than to blame himself for what happened to you. Blame himself for not being able to foresee what was about to take place when once again he'd been nothing but the encyclopedia of all things you, since you came into your earthly existence. Sees no other alternative for not being able to save you in time, even if it entailed losing everything he had forged for himself, even if it meant losing everything heaven had given him.

At this point, you'll arrive when you arrive and he'll try his utmost to act like heaven expects of him. Deliver your training, pretend like any of this was justified.

When it wasn't.

Isn't.

Never will be.

 Some time has evidently passed. A rustle of leaves is heard in the previously deafening silence. Jongin's wide, white feathered wings flap once, an instinctual movement, one he has no control over. His breath is sharp, shallow, as he holds the blade he and every other Guardian Angel is in possession of to his chest. These weapons were mostly precautionary, in case of intruders of heaven, something heaven and its inhabitants hadn't need worry about in at least several millennia, but wars had existed in the past, and the inhabitants needed to be trained in case of one ever breaking out again, or in the extremely rare case of an intrusion into heaven's walls. These days, these weapons were mostly for decoration. Jongin's had never been used.  

Right now, he has one purpose. Collect his underlings and guide them to their rooms, help them settle as much as he's been allocated to. Answer any of their questions as he does so, do everything he can to make this journey easier for his underlings, for the newer, younger angels in training. This time, a gnawing, visceral pain cuts through him, splintering him within. Even though he now knows beyond a doubt that your eternity was promised, the guilt still bubbles within, cuts into every joint, every blood cell. If illness could materialize in heaven like it can on earth, he's sure he'd be the very definition of decay, this moment in time.

He knows not if it's a blessing or a curse that it can't. At least this time. As he takes one step closer, he's not sure what he's expecting, how many underlings he'd been expecting, but in some sick twist of fate, it's you, alone. You don't look like you've just had your life taken from you in a metal death contraption, at least not physically. You're not bloodied, broken or bruised like you once had been. You're not strapped to a million and one wires that are doing overtime to ensure you're allocated one more year... month, week, hour, minute of life. The light in your eyes hasn't been drained and torn from you, like it was that fateful day.

He knows he wouldn't be able to keep his composure if any of that were to be presented before him, but is this worse? That it's now being painted like a rebirth, or even worse, like a surprise ending to a chapter of a book that abruptly ended. Like a beautiful eternity you've somehow unlocked from a premature death, a violent, bloody death. One no one saw coming.

As if that makes up for it. As if you could've ever contemplated such brutality for yourself on the most important day of your life? Like you would've ever chose that. Jongin knows you wouldn't. You know you wouldn't.

All for an eternity you didn't ask for, in a realm you'd re-enter with no memory of. A foreign, alien land so unlike that of the earth you'd known. It didn't sound like a good deal to Jongin.

Didn't feel like one when he had to watch you cry, scream and try your hardest to claw your way out of this seemingly new body and realm you'd found yourself in.

"I don't want this," you say. And he's speechless. All he can do is look at you, feel the crease between his eyebrows, feel the heart beating in his chest that's already been shattered into pieces innumerable, shatter all over again.

You're on your knees now, the sand around you caring not where it ends up. On your clothing, mixed into your hair, your eyelashes, wet with tears unending. If your emotion would materialize on your being at this very moment, you'd look like you did after the crash had taken place.

Jongin wants to fall to his knees too.

"Let me go back," you sob, and though you're a far distance away, you reach out your hand but he's not even sure if it's to him, or even if you've noticed him properly, it's like in this present state you're reaching out to anyone who'd listen. Who could grant you your desire.

Maybe instinctively you know Jongin can't.

He takes a deep breath as he edges closer, ever so gently taking hold of your arm, but it's still like you don't feel it. You're limp when he picks you up, guiding you onto your feet. Again, just like that god-awful day, your eyes have no light, your body has no fight. It comes on suddenly, so suddenly and it takes everything in him to not fall to his own knees and beg for your forgiveness, regardless of what anyone could or would say in protest.

This clearly had to have been his fault. He wanted to know you, too much. Wanted to converse with you, too much. Maybe he'd slyly intervened just a little too much? Who knew, but the reasons within his mind seemed numerous. He wouldn't accept that you would've chosen this.

"This too, will pass," he feels like a hypocrite to his own ears. Would it? Really? And maybe the words sound distant, floaty and stable to your own ears, but he hears the thickness of his words, tastes the way he chokes them out. He's not poised right now, even if he seems so to an untrained eye. If this were training, he'd have already failed. And he's thankful you're not coherent, because he'd give anything to cry the tears for you, than have to sob alongside you, for the life you've had cut short from you. The world you've been torn away from.

 Counting the days comes a little easier now you're in front of him, existing in the same realm as him. But every hour stings still, every minute, even. Three long weeks take place, three weeks that you spend the most of in agony, he, the same, though he knows you can't tell. Before you arrived, he couldn't hide any of it, but now you're here, he feels that he must. He refuses to make your transition harder, refuses to make this any more harrowing and painful for you. You need some sense of stability. He has to try his hardest to be that for you.

Until you finally meet eyes with him, eyes dry of tears you thought you'd never run out of, an emptiness residing there instead. His own demeanor falters. Hope had always been something so tenderly threaded within your being, even at the worst of times, that it felt so agonizingly out of place to see it depleted, entering into a realm of hopelessness.

Maybe you don't notice how he gulps the lump down in his throat, the way he averts his gaze only slightly.  

"What am I even supposed to do here?"

He explains everything. The seemingly endless possibilities. How you'll train and study and help upkeep the heavens, keep watch. From A-Z, he explains it all, sounding like a trained salesperson to his own ears. It's almost humorous. Just how long had he been here, really? On the manual of all things heaven, Jongin knows he wouldn't miss a punctuation mark. None of that is your focus right now, though, and he can see the burning question swirl within your irises.  

"Do I get to go to earth?"

His lack of reply as he composes himself seems to be all the confirmation you need that... that's not currently on the cards and may never be again. His eyes follow your movements helplessly as you kick the ground beneath you, your eyes once again welling with tears, falling onto your knees, hands balled into fists, before they fan flat, your nail almost chipping from the pressure you're exerting as you dig it into the ground below you, as if you can claw your way back.

He understands.

 Training is going as planned, as are the lessons. Whilst your spirit isn't in it, not even slightly, it's no lie that you grasp concepts well and excel in ways he once had, during his own days of training. It's almost a case of rinse, rest, repeat as you fall into this routine. Wake up, study extensively, rest, repeat. The light in your eyes still isn't back, and Jongin's trying to come to terms with the possibility that it might never be there again. But you're excelling, grasping everything the way you're expected to. Though he knows the hours that aren't allocated to studying, they're filled with your despair, endless tears you swore you'd seen the last of, the day before, the day before that. But now you hide them from your peers and Jongin feels that's even worse.

Even more difficult.

He doesn't expect that of you, but he feels he has no way of telling you so.   

Today's lesson ends a little differently, however. You approach him, determination lining your features. "Teacher," you start, and he nods to encourage you, let you know he's listening, though his eyes don't fully meet your own, they stay trained to the piece of paper he's writing on. "Is there a... way to go back?"

He stills, glancing up at you, breath slightly hitching.

"To earth, I mean."

"I know what you mean," Jongin says gently. He's not sure how guarded his own expression is because he watches some semblance of understanding flitter behind your eyes. Jongin shakes his head and moves to get up from the desk he's sitting at. Now you know he has more insight on the topic, this is not something you're just going to drop, not with your inquisitive, determined nature. 

"Please," you then plead, catching up to his long strides as you reach out to stop him from leaving the room. "Can we at least just discuss this? Even if briefly?"  

Sitting you back down, you're not expecting the extensive reply you receive. How Jongin covers every basis. From every angle. The possible impossibility, the warnings if it were possible, the consequences, so far, so forth. None of his words are judgemental, you can't actually pinpoint the emotion behind them, if there is an emotion behind them. It's all just factual, as theoretically factual as it can be, considering no one in heaven has ever pulled this off, nor ever attempted to. You listen, intently. Trying not to zone out here and there, which you find yourself doing a lot of, since arriving in heaven. The frequency of heaven is so different than what you remember of earth, as faint as that's starting to feel.

This was a much rawer, confusing process than people made it out to be in the movies. There was no beautiful transition, no peaceful acceptance. Just agony, a lot of it. And even more confusion.

If you hadn't had your teacher Jongin with you, you know you'd be having an even worse time. So you're thankful for that, at least. But you know any which way, if there's a way to return to earth, you're going to find it. And attempt it. You just hope Jongin isn't given the blame for your own actions, if that fateful day ever does arrive, knowledge-giver or not.

His eyes haven't left your features since he started explaining, as if gauging your reaction. "If you did find a way to return to earth, though we have no idea what the consequences of that action would be for earth, time, your human life and your existence itself, I can guarantee that it wouldn't go unnoticed by heaven."

Somehow you already knew that to be the case. You nod and thank him for all he's told you today, excusing yourself as you make your way to the door to exit the room. But just as you're doing so, you murmur, mostly to yourself, the sadness in your voice penetrating your own eardrums, "I still had so much left to do."

"I know."

"I had so many more plans," you find yourself continuing, forlornly. It's been so difficult to get these words out, to voice how unfair all of this actually feels. If you're sure of anything, you're sure you intended to tough out the human mission. Live as long as you could naturally. That had there been the option to opt out of 'accidental deaths', you'd have done so. You have no way of retracing your steps, but if pre-human you had've agreed to that, you'd love to have a word with them, ask them what the - and pardon your usage of this term - hell was wrong with them...

...What was wrong with you.

Do the angelic beings just sit conceptualizing lives they could live if given the option like these very lives are an endless array of video games options, or an episode of some ongoing sitcom show? Signing up for horrific ends of lives just like that, as if they won't be the ones feeling that very death take place, with none of their prior memories in tact? Just what kind of meta-masochism is that? God, the questions you actually had, they were unending. You didn’t even know where to begin with verbalizing them all.

"I know," Jongin repeats, quieter. By this point he's caught up with you, and passes by gently. "E-excuse me," he says, as he reaches for the door handle.

But you stay still, eyebrows furrowed.

You'd been reading this wrong, hadn't you? Your prior encounters and conversations with your teacher seem to flit by in chronological order in your mind, highlighting all the things you seemed to miss, in the emotional sphere of things. No, none of it was lack of emotion. All of it was emotion, so much emotion, that it became that seeming lack of emotion. Like an emotional shutdown, a timed and practised one. Only here, in this proximity, do you notice it falter.

"Jongin?" You start. "...Teacher?"

His next breath is shaky, it falters. You don't even need words here, he's on your wavelength, he seemingly already knows what it is you're about to get at. "We have bonds too," the words don't exactly falter, but the way he fumbles with clasping and unclasping own hands as if he's trying to calm himself down, tell you his true emotional state. "You... remind me of someone, that's all."

You look at his dark brown hair, notice how he won't meet your gaze, how he swallows as if this will convince himself of the words he's saying. 

"I think recognise you from somewhere," you push.

His exhale eludes him. His entire being seems to wash with dread, and somehow you know you've hit the nail on the head. "Maybe the artwork," he offers. The artwork of angels in the human realm, you suppose he's referencing here, however, short and sweet answers aren't like him, at least as you've come to know. And no, you haven't been here long, but when it feels like there's not a lot else to do, learning about others and trying to understand them apparently ranks high on your list of priorities.  

"No, I mean. ...I've seen you somewhere," you insist. "You, teacher Jongin. As you are. I don't mean an artwork I witnessed in my human life. I recognize you." Gently you reach over and place your hand atop his and watch as he winces and snatches his hand back. But not before you feel the chorus of: 'I caused this, I'm to blame for what happened to you. I caused this, I'm to blame for what happened to you. I caused this, I'm to blame for what happened to you. I caused this, I caused this, I caused this' emanating off his very being.

Startled is an understatement, as you wince, also flinching to the same severity Jongin just hand.

His wince follows. His sole desire to encounter his human face to face, to wish for it so strongly, surely that caused this in its entirety. Rather than offer any explanation, which you're half heartedly expecting at this point, Jongin flits out of the room, leaving you bewildered and in even more confusion than prior.

 Some days pass until your next encounter. You're swaying on a swing set located in the heavenly gardens, that seems like it overlooks earth and the cosmos itself, it's a fascinating sight, one you could stare at and try decode all day. You don't really have the time for that right now, your schedule is surprisingly packed and has been since you arrived here, but you do have a small amount of free time allocated during your days. Mostly you spend them exploring the mass that is heaven, the endless, ethereally beautiful mass. And today, you’re entirely taken by this.

Your eyes keep flitting a little to the left every time your swing reaches high up into the air, landing directly on an array of looking glasses, snow-like globes, that seem to contain the image of a different person's life, human after human, situation after situation, in real time, and you find yourself longing even harder to be back on the earthly plane, which surprises you, considering you're encountering a view like nothing you've ever seen before. Something so outside of the human scope of understanding, something so fascinating, that everything else on earth genuinely seems to pale in comparison.

Though what you're looking at is that, everything on earth. In real time. Seemingly every person that's ever been, is, or will be, reflected all at once, on their individual snow globes. Some are playing in the park with their dogs, others are trying their best not to flunk their upcoming exams, some are in the midst of a job interview they've lost sleep over, others are deep in meditation, but all, ultimately, even those that would argue within an inch of their life that they knew otherwise, are completely unaware of the sheer scope of transcendence and timelessness that exists outside the human lifespan. The human existence. All are equally unaware of just how deeply special and fascinating their little stretch of life and existence actually is. Most take for granted the beauty of the earth, too.

You're not trying to evade blame in any of those facets, because you were the exact same and now you'd do anything to return.

Oddly it's only when your eyes fall onto a young woman, much like you were, unzipping and picking up her violin do your hands shake and the enormity of emotion you're experiencing as you view all of this hit you, all at once.  

You hadn't known he was there initially, he has a very quiet way of appearing alongside any of the inhabitants of heaven, but as soon as you notice his presence, Jongin is no longer looking at you. Things had been a little uncomfortably quiet between you two since the conversation in the classroom, but Jongin was nothing if not the perfect teacher, mentor, guider... and angelic being. He didn't hold grudges towards anyone he encountered, didn't push anyone to explain them self or force anyone to talk about things they weren't ready for.

He certainly didn't outwardly showcase how shaken that conversation likely left him, truly, he treated you as normally as he could. Taught you as normally as he could. Guided you as normally as he could.

But it had cast a shadow of something over your dynamic that neither of you were reaching to iron out and discuss, at least not yet. Still, you find yourself discussing anything and everything around him. Asking questions you probably shouldn't be asking, yet still find yourself asking.

Usually he had the perfect answer. But you had a knack for choosing the instances he didn't.

"Did I ask for that?" You start, as he places himself beside you. "Would I have really asked for that?"

Jongin says nothing, this time, which you're half expecting. He knows the answer to all these questions, you feel, there's just something else he's not telling you. Sometimes that's intentional, some things are your own to figure out, you're well aware of that. But this seems like it is something he can't seem to tell you. And by answering these questions you randomly throw his way, sometimes, it appears like that in itself would be the key to the exact piece of knowledge he can't diverge.

"I see it over and over," you continue. Both of you know what you're referencing. The change, the transition, as heaven would like for you to call it. The awful experience with death is all you can remember it as. "Then I see sand, then I choke on the sand, then I'm here. And it's blindingly white before it's beautifully iridescent, lukewarm and sterile, but the sterility has not left nor shifted into its true beauty and at this point I'm wondering if it ever will."

Sterile's a good descriptor, Jongin thinks, as he listens to you intently. Beautiful, monotonous living, gift wrapped in a scope of color the human eye couldn't even process, let alone keep up with. Jongin, he's never known any different, but you have. Of course you'd want to go back. Especially when you both knew you had unfinished business.

No, not business. An unfinished life. A life curt short.

"They're a lot more free than here, huh?"

"In all the ways you could and could not imagine. But we don't hurt in the same way, we have knowledge of the infinite. Our pain can't create worlds in the same way and our love, I'd argue it can't be measured in the same scale, at least as I've observed." If it could, wouldn't you be safe right now? Securely sleeping in your cozy, warm bed after the most meaningful night of your life?

"I don't believe that."

"Well, I couldn't help," Jongin finally chokes out, "I mean--"

Something akin to understanding clicks in your expression and Jongin regrets his words. There were languages without sound, truly, weren't there? "Jongin--" You reach out to grab him, but he's already on his way.

"Have a rejuvenating rest," he says curtly. "It's a busy day tomorrow. "

 It's a day or two later, during your free time, as you travel down another unexplored corner of heaven, hoping to learn all you can about your new place of residence. You glance to the unending hall titled 'Music', and find yourself flitting towards it as fast as you can, eyes scanning and cascading down every section, barely withholding your gasp. For a minute, there's nowhere else, the individual souls you've known are but a second, passing thought as you drink in everything before you, the endless beauty of all things music. What it was, is and could be in every realm of possibility, in every realm of existence. Songs and scores that humanity hadn't even considered being possible, instruments that made the beauty of the violin - your most prized and beloved instrument - pale.  

Today marks your first true smile, on this strange, heavenly plane, your first day of true happiness and contentment. And from today, you're sure it won't be your last.

You tiptoe back to the heavenly gardens you find yourself viewing in an entirely new color. The heavenly gardens whose beauty you haven't given yourself chance to truly witness. It strikes you that today is the first day you've been anchored in the present moment, noticing the happenings around you, instead of existing in your own heavenly little bubble. There's a line of newly turned - slash - recruited angels a few footfalls away from you, congregating together as they take a class you don't really remember taking yourself but surely must have, and there in all his glory, stands your mentor, in his flowing pink robes, with his truly unmistakable aura.

As floaty as it is - and it is, every angelic being seems to be - his presence is unlike any of the other angels you've met, it's more stable, somehow less floaty in comparison.

Jongin pats the space beside him as he instructs the new angels to sit beside him. They do so happily, all smiles and grace... and peace. Something tells you none of them were traumatic deaths, so likely no murders or accidents. Likely terminal patients who'd long since accepted the end of their lives, already lived out the grief and denial stages. Were actually looking forward to what came next.

Not one inch of you relates, and maybe that's for the best. Because you wouldn't have wanted to face the severity of their struggles on the earthly plane, either. There was no game of comparisons, at the heart of it. Those that ended up in heaven, ended up in heaven. That was the one truth. Regardless of how that came to be.

You were here now, and so were they. You actually wanted the best for them, and hoped they settled in as easily as they could have done, and as happily. You hoped that contentment and happiness followed them for all of their days. 

"Guardian Angel, Jongin," is what breaks you out of your reverie, a statement that is intended as both an introduction and a greeting to the new angels.

But one that leaves you feeling cold, numb, and confused. Not mentor angel, Jongin or teacher angel, Jongin as he'd referred to himself with you on numerous occasions, but Guardian Angel, Jongin. For some reason the name rings loud and clear, it almost deafens you. A warmth floods through you, it's not necessarily anger, but it's not wholly understanding either.

 You’ve waited a few days to approach your 'mentor' slash 'teacher'. Cutting straight to the chase, though it seems he’s half expecting you. Maybe this should stop you in your tracks to assess the situation, but it doesn’t. "When were you going to tell me?"

The ice water is colder than he anticipated, and Jongin had spent every moment since you arrived anticipating this exact encounter. How could he have been so stupid as to instruct a class during your break, knowing you frequented the heavenly gardens so?

"...That you knew me all this time?" You don't miss a beat. "That you were my Guardian Angel?"

He glances the other way, but you're closing in on him. He half fears an altercation, but heaven had never seen the likes of that between its own inhabitants. Slim chance as it was, you did not look happy. His heart pangs in pain, but also in understanding. Had he prolonged your confusion and anguish during your transition by not letting you know his truest position in heaven? Suddenly, his grief and anger at himself hits him tenfold, and he wants to re-imprison himself in his room of holding. Things weren't bad enough already, were they? Now he'd only gone and added to your pain and suffering when he could've been helping you adjust and heal properly through the bond you naturally shared.  

He felt like the worst Guardian Angel that had ever existed. His next sentence seeming to only cement this fact in his own mind. "I slept through the car crash." He shakes his head.  "...Rather was positioned somewhere where I couldn't correct this, but that is the same as sleeping through it considering my connection to you, and how close I have been to you all of your life, considering how well I know you. What I am to you. There is no justification of that, there is no logical way of explaining it, there is no redemption for that, Y/N. I failed you. At present, do I even deserve the title Guardian Angel? I should've been stripped of my position the second this took place."

It’s as if this opens the floodgates of all that is yet to be said, explained, or experienced. You can feel the tears cascading down your cheeks, you can feel yourself edge closer to the beautiful, angelic being before you and you can feel yourself wrap yourself in his embrace and sob until there are no tears left, and knowing you can't get a coherent word out here, you listen as well as you can. To all he has to say. The pain, and slight anger you'd been feeling dissipating, though he feels his words should evoke the exact opposite reaction. The guilt and suffering within him feels like it could tear apart worlds, and yet he sees himself as being unworthy of his position. It's easier to pinpoint all the ways he assisted you and helped you during your earthly life, especially in his embrace, adding in all the ways he's helped you here in heaven, and yet he dismays of himself so much, when he's the shining example of what heaven wants their angels to be, and especially their Guardian Angels, that’s as much as you can gather, if any of your classes are to go by. 

"A foreboding sense like that can't be ignored, and there's no doubt that I would've fallen if it meant saving you, maybe someone knew that somewhere, and thus... I ended up in that room of imprisonment. You have every right to hate and despise me to your heart's content, but you think I wasn't mad too? At the feebleness of the human form, how easily that beautiful life can be taken away, like it never even existed in the first place? But that anger never settles on you, it is always directed at myself. I was chosen to guide you, to protect and defend you and I failed in the moment you needed me the most. I should've found my way out, I should've stopped that day's events taking place. You should be alive right now, and we should've met many, many, many years from now. I should've held onto patience, waited for you to come to heaven in your own time, yet I fear my unending desire to meet you face to face, to know you face to face, resulted in that day's events, somehow. Regardless of what anyone else can say on the contrary. I love you, Y/N, in all the ways a Guardian Angel should. I adore everything you are and everything that makes you, you. I have been so blessed to know you, to have been assigned to you. I have such endless love and pride for you and everyday it kills me in how much I failed my one true purpose, as a Guardian Angel. Truthfully I care not if I lose everything after today, but I haven't been doing nothing in the time since you arrived. I have been studying like crazy. Reading documents that even I am not allowed to chance upon. Or shouldn't. I may lose everything, and I know you won't remember any of this after a few weeks back on the ground but... at the end of your days, your natural days, I do hope we will meet again. And be face to face once more. Until then, it has been the loveliest thing in existence to know you, like this. The most prideful and honorable thing to be your Guardian Angel. Please remember me, somewhere within. And know I am always on your side. I am always with you. Though I know not will happen to me after today, for you, it's worth it. You will always be worth it."

"Guardian Angel Jongin...?"

"Our past few weeks have have barely counted down there, on earth. It’ll be hours, tops. Truthfully, regardless of what it takes from me, I will alter that day's events. Though I wanted to meet you face to face so, so, so much. I didn't mean like this. It shouldn't have happened like this. Not like this. Never like this."

Before you can blink, or even realize just how closed in you’re suddenly feeling, how the sense of your surroundings seems to have blurred since you entered this strange room you just, for some reason, seemed to assume was his classroom, but blatantly isn’t upon second glance, he places his hand atop yours as a shrill, ear splitting sound enters the room and elicits an even shriller gasp from you whilst a blinding off-white light envelopes you within and twirls and twirls, and keeps twirling, until all you knew of heaven and your Guardian Angel Jongin fades, and fades, and keeps fading...

 Awaking with a start, the familiar Parisian trees come into your line of vision. You glance around you and notice your manager, and driver bopping along as normal to the radio, as the car pulls up to your destination, exactly on time, as safely as ever. You blink once, then several times more, wondering where your head-splitting headache came from and why you suddenly feel so nauseous and out of place. "I had the strangest dream," you finally settle on, directing this towards your manager who's hardly paying any attention to you at this moment in time. Still, you continue, "I think I met my guardian angel."

Your manager guffaws, rolling his eyes. "Guardian angel? Y/N, there's no such thing!"

As you glance back at the trunk of the car, the droplets of light rain trickling down the window, you wipe the lone tear that also trickles down your cheek away. "Thank you," you whisper, not knowing if this will be your only chance to tell him that, if these memories are to leave you soon and though you swear you must've been back on earth barely two minutes, it already feels like they are leaving you. But you know in your heart, that you will meet him again, someday. Thank him, someday. For all he did for you, today.

For a moment, you see Guardian Angel Jongin's outline in the empty seat to the right of you, along with his faint, but unmistakable pink glow. You feel the warm, comforting energy you've felt around you so often, during good and bad days, and anything in between, and finally understand that this being really has been watching out for you as long as you can remember, that he has been with you through everything, and hopefully will continue to be, regardless of the possible severity of his last actions.  

Maybe it was nothing but a test for him, a screening for him to understand the worst possible scenario a human and their Guardian Angel can go through together, for him to truly cement and prove the fact that he truly was as devoted to you as his position expected him to be, and in doing so, you suppose he passed with flying colors, or he lost everything he was... but it was your life, and now you intend to live it. To the fullest you can.

For everything you've got left to do, to be.