Mark watches with a torn heart 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 lad