Minseok held his head in his hands and in a breath, trying to calm the whirlwind of information he was just given. He hadn’t seriously contemplated seeing his family since becoming a proxy despite the glaringly obvious opportunity.

Maybe his subconscious mind had stayed away from that question for a reason.

Part of him wanted to jump through a port right away, and the other part of him wanted to escape to his balcony. He saw the real reason that Chen had asked him those hypotheticals about seeing his family now and the people of whom the demon had to see whether they were worthy. He also told Minseok how Yixing was the one who wanted to let Chen understand his family firsthand and so made him go. That was one of the more shocking things.

“Minseok?”

He looked up at his friend and sighed at both Yixing and Chen’s worried faces.

“I know that you two were just trying to help me. Don’t look like that. Sooner or later, I would’ve made myself face them.”

“It doesn’t have to be now. The choice to see them and when, if ever, is yours.”

Minseok nodded, and before cowardice could smother his courage or maybe his impulse, he nodded again.

“I’ll see them.”

“You will?”

“Yes. Can I do it now?”

Yixing nodded, but Chen bristled, amber flaring in his eyes.

“Chen?”

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

He stood and ped a portal. Yixing squeezed his shoulder in encouragement, and Minseok hurried through, letting out a shaky breath after it closed behind them. A light flashed at the other end, and when Minseok opened his eyes, the clouds of the Mid-Gate floated at his feet. Chen was already approaching the gate of emerald and gold, the bars opening as he neared. Minseok jogged after him, not wanting to wander an in-between space by himself, but also because Chen had suddenly become taciturn. He had seen his family—was he disappointed or upset with him?

Minseok could understand if he was. Hearing of his terrible behavior from all sides of his dead family members probably made even the demon recoil in disgust.

Another light flashed, and they stepped out onto a lush field. Green grass sprung at his ankles, and the sky painted in bright azure, not a single cloud in sight. A glistening white path wound towards some buildings, shining under the unseen light source, and Minseok barely had a moment to register that this was for-real heaven when the single figure walking the path turned smaller and smaller.

He ran forward, towards Chen as he walked the steps of a baked clay building. It looked like a government building but cleaner and with more decorative pillars than necessary and insignias of holy symbols.

The building couldn’t have been more than two stories, but its presence stretched over Minseok, looming, heavy, forbearing, knowing. The clay faces seemed to glow as he approached, and in the engraved arrows and scales, he saw them take aim and point to him in accusation, true and absolute.

Chen was already halfway up the steps, and Minseok panicked.

“Chen!”

He stopped and turned around.

“I’m scared.”

That sounded so pathetic, but Minseok couldn’t help the fear constricting his chest and his limbs. The air here tasted sharp and prickly, like each breath poked at him to admit his guilt, his wrongdoings, and his sins, to stop taking what wasn’t his, but he couldn’t stop pulling air into his lungs like a greedy criminal.

“Minseok, look at me.”

He flinched even as the hands fell lightly on his shoulders.

“Look at me,” Chen said.

His voice had softened its pull, so Minseok followed those last fringes of instruction. Chen’s eyes washed in waves of amber and brown.

“We have to stop here first to let the Ophanim angels guarding the souls know we’re entering. It’s like getting visitor passes. The first circle has your parents.”

His parents—no, he couldn’t do this. He knew well their emotions towards him, felt it with punches in the cheek, in clawed words over his heart, from sudden voids. He had gotten used to the void after their deaths. The echoes of his mother’s voice had long blended with his brother’s. Blame fashioned cold expressions and set them into familiar faces, told him what to expect even though the pain never quite diminished like it promised. Facing the void was easier.

“Minseok, you wanted to apologize to them, right?”

He nodded before he realized that he had.

“Then go do what you set out to do. You’re not someone to back down from what’s right. I know that, and you have my respect for it.” Chen pressed his cheek to his and rubbed along the side of his head. “And for a lot of other things too.”

Minseok wrapped his arms around Chen, shuddering. The decision to see his family had been impulse—he knew now, but Chen believed in him, so he drew courage from his words and his presence and nodded. Nosing his hair one more time, the demon took his hand, and they walked through the opening carved out of the building’s face.

The inside kept the same baked earth look, and the layout structured like a town hall, more open and domed. Compared to Purgatory, there were less places to dawdle than the hotel-looking lobby. An angel sat behind a single desk in the middle, and when she looked up at them, she raised an eyebrow but at least waited for them to approach before speaking.

“What business does a demon and… a living human have here?”

“Same reason as seven hours ago. I’m Chen.”

“Ah, yes, Henry told me about you. However, the one next to you does not have a record. Who authorized a living human to walk in heaven?”

“He’s the proxy, Kim Minseok.”

Her eyes lit in surprise, glancing at him, but she nodded and stood. Chen held out his free hand, and the angel traced a pattern into his palm. The demon curled his lip but nodded, then she turned to him.

Mimicking Chen, Minseok held out his palm and jumped a bit at the sensation singeing into his skin as she drew. It felt hot and cold at the same time, and when he watched the pattern glow in his hand, it wasn’t any symbol he understood. His and Chen’s also differed.

“Those are good for both levels, so you can go straight to the second circle after your business on the first is done.”

Chen nodded, and Minseok gave her a small thank you. Chen guided him down what looked to be both a suburb neighborhood and downtown, rows of houses interspaced with greenery and shopping centers and offices. Minseok wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he walked into heaven, but two people slugging each other outside an apartment complex was not it.

He glanced at Chen, who just rolled his eyes and kept walking. The demon occasionally glanced down at his palm as he led them through the area. Minseok glanced at his own again but didn’t see or feel much difference, and focusing on that let him avoid the trembling energy building in his body.

“Chen, why is yours different from mine?”

“Because my aura is stronger than yours. These are basically suppressors. If my symbol was on your hand, you’d probably wouldn’t even be able to stand.”

“Oh. Well, you are really strong. Is this from a certain ability?”

Chen paused to rub his cheek on Minseok’s shoulder, a bit random but Minseok smiled. “No, it’s a learned skill. All angels are required to know certain basics, but the Glory of Ophanim are required to know a standard of advanced suppression techniques. The Ophanim Glory are the protectors of souls in heaven, like how Neshiyyah is for Purgatory.”

“Does yours hurt?”

“No, but it’s annoying, like some low-class demon is teething on my hand. Does yours?”

“It doesn’t feel like anything now.”

“Good. Your soul’s not entirely demonic yet anyway, so you won’t be as bothered by holy light. It’s better if you have fewer distractions.”

Minseok swallowed the renewing ball of tension in his throat. He tried to take deep breaths and look at how relatively normal the ring of heaven seemed as people hustled and bustled down the streets, but as the buildings started to melt into bigger fields and greenery, Minseok clutched at Chen’s hand. People still walked here, laid in the grass, and even rode bikes in this rural looking part of the circle.

His parents always wanted to return to the more laidback nostalgia of the countryside.

“Is heaven what you thought it’d be?”

Minseok startled, but Chen just tilted his head and waited for his answer.

“Not really. I didn’t expect it to look so… normal. There were even people arguing back there.”

“This area is probably familiar because it’s structured like a city. There are landscape and urban sections spread all throughout heaven’s first and second rings.”

“Oh, yeah. Zhoumi said that the third and fourth rings were the only ones that had all those courtyards. Do people still live on those rings too?”

“They do but away from most of the angels’ administration buildings and libraries. They get slightly fancier buildings, hence the courtyards.”

“Is there a reason for the layout difference?”

“The first ring is for average people who passed away. They were innocent, or the sin for which they passed the trial in Purgatory wasn’t that bad. They didn’t stand out in the eyes of God but lived as decent people. The second ring is similar, but generally the humans there had one or two moments of their lives where what they did changed someone’s life for the better. The third and fourth rings are for people who lived righteously. The fifth and sixth rings have different requirements, and the seventh is reserved for God and their chosen.”

His lip curled in the slightest of snarls.

“Keep this in mind though—hell rarely gets its sorting wrong, but heaven has more errors.”

“Are the judgements erred towards the bad actions that one did?”

“No, it’s just that heaven gives the benefit of the doubt to those who don’t deserve it.”

Minseok wondered if the demon was speaking from experience but couldn’t ask about it. Chen stopped them in front of a cottage. From the ones they passed, this was the only one with green and white flowers speckling the door and walkway. A man was picking weeds from the flowerbed, stopping as he noticed them.

“Ah, you’re here again and with a buddy.”

“Hello. Can you tell them that I’m here again?”

“Well, sure, but who’s the fellow next to you? Another demon? He looks a little like Nahae.”

Minseok lost his grip on Chen’s hand. He nearly lost his grasp on the world at the mention of his mother’s name, at how the likeness he held in his face was still recognized by his parents’ friends, but Chen took his hand again and squeezed it.

“They’ll recognize him when they see him.”

The man rubbed his chin for a bit before shrugging and hobbling into the house. The door shut, and Minseok took a step back, then another before Chen tugged him back.

“C-Chen, I can’t. I hadn’t seen them in years. I hadn’t seen them since—”

“I know. You have a mission though. A personal mission, and I’ll be here if you need me.”

Just as he finished speaking, the door creaked open. Minseok turned his head and froze as the woman at the doorway did.

Once when he was little, before responsibility weighed across his parents’ shoulders, his mother pulled out old photographs of herself and held one up to his face, cooing at how he took after her. That was how he recognized his mother, one before years of stress and work shadowed her face hollow and gaunt, as she stepped onto the walkway. Behind her, unmoving from the doorframe, staring wide-eyed over her head, stood the younger version of his father he also saw in those photographs.

“Minseok?”

She stopped halfway. Minseok couldn’t tear his eyes away or make his limbs move. All he saw was shock across both their faces. Shock was always first. His chest collapsed on itself as fear of their next expression coiled within. But a warmth in his hand gave a comforting squeeze, and Minseok remembered his own courage, his mission. He slipped out of Chen’s hold and took a step forward, swallowing at his dry throat and the prickly air. Then he took a breath.

“Hi, Mom.”

She bolted down the path and nearly flung him backwards with the force of her hug. Just as quickly, she pulled back and gripped his face, tears her eyes.

“It is you,” she whispered. “How? Did you…” She shook her head and squashed him in another hug. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

Letting go, she took his hand and waved at his dad still at the doorway.

“Honey, come here! It’s Minseok!”

Slowly, he walked over too, and wordlessly gripped Minseok’s shoulders, his lips trembling.

“Let’s get inside! We have so much to catch up on. It’s been almost eight years on Earth, hasn’t it? It’s a bit hard to keep track of time in heaven.”

They had started to pull him down the path, and up until then, Minseok had needed the extra time listening to their voices and seeing their mannerisms to process how real this moment was and to remember that they had once welcomed him like this. Though their hands no longer held warmth, the little squeezes, the small hugs, that he had cried for years ago now surrounded him, pressed and impressed affection.

He jerked out of their touches. They both stopped and looked back to him with confusion.

“Minseok, come on. What’re you doing?”

He wondered that too. For someone who yearned so long for his parents to speak and touch and comfort him again, he was being a hypocrite, contradictory and spoiled. But the dryness in his throat suddenly flooded with words.

“I thought you said that you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

They froze. Minseok winced. Shock was always first. Then the break of rage or spitting bitterness or cold and righteous apathy. An instinct to run before they could ensnare him beckoned from the back of his mind, but the words in his mouth spoke louder, moved faster. They couldn’t stop. Minseok wouldn’t.

“It has been eight and a half years. That’s why I can’t believe it when you suddenly invite me into your house or even into the conversation, because the last time you spoke to me, Mom, you said that I was allowed to stay in the house, but I could never call it home.”

His mother reached for his hand, and he snatched it away.

“You said that if home is where your heart and family is, then I had none. I would have none because Minwoo’s death was on my hands, and you wouldn’t have any love or ties with a murderer. Dad, you disowned me at the hospital in front of Minwoo’s corpse! Should I not have hoped that we could at least grieve like a family? And be there for each other? I know I hid things from you two, but you told me to handle it. Minwoo, money, work, school—I did it because then I thought we could at least sit down and eat together without needing a holiday as an excuse. All these years, I was sure that I cared too much, and that was why Minwoo ran out to the streets, but I never thought that it was because you cared too little. Was I wrong? I know it doesn’t matter since I brought this on myself, but it hurt so much.”

His throat tightened into knots, and he coughed as the air twisted wrong between his gasps and his words. But then his mother called him, in that tone used to soothe a pouty child, and frustration rushed out of him like an avalanche.

“Does it suddenly not matter to you? Because you’re both souls in heaven now? Everything you said and did and didn’t do to me is all okay and absolved, and you’re going to act like I didn’t ing hate myself for the last eight and a half years? I— Maybe you didn’t know that I believed you when you said that Minwoo was murdered because of me, but I did. I was ready to die! Was that me simply being selfish and self-centered too? I made mistakes and didn’t tell you what Minwoo was really doing or feeling, but now I don’t want to turn a blind eye just for one peaceful dinner with people I have a one-sided familial relationship with. So no, I don’t want to go inside and pretend like you loved me all your life and afterlife.”

He backed away, ready to turn around and sprint. The call in the back of his mind echoed forward. Chen could follow him easily. But seeing the demon at the edge of the path reminded him of his task, so he stayed rooted to the cement, trying to drown out the temptation in his head as he drowned in the wave of his past and present.

He bowed his head, trying to keep his tears in his hands.

“But I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I couldn’t—”

“Minseok, hush! No more, Snap Pea. We do care, and what we did was not okay. You’re not the one who needs to apologize.”

The cool touch of his parents wrapped around him, gently patting, and he couldn’t keep the strength to stand. He sunk to the ground, plopping and heaving fat tears across the walkway. All he could hear was his own gasping cries as his mother used her hands and dress to wipe at his eyes and nose.

“Ah, Seok-ah, all this snot. You’re definitely still alive. Don’t cry anymore, Snap Pea. It’s okay. Mom and Dad were wrong to say and do those things to you, and we were wrong to ever do anything to make you think that we didn’t love you. I… I’m sorry that I blamed you and put so much pressure on you. I’m sorry—”

She started crying too, and he curved into her embrace as they cried together. He lost count of how many times he or his mom wiped at his eyes. When the tears had mostly stopped, his father nudged his chin up. They weren’t as boney or rough as Minseok remembered, but instead firm and gentle. Minseok still flinched as he rubbed his palm over the same cheek that he had punched all those years ago, and something broke in his dad’s eyes.

“It wasn’t right of me to lay a hand on you, my son. I’m sorry, Seok-ah.”

“You don’t have to forgive us if you don’t want to, but we should explain things to you. Okay, Snap Pea?”

A new burst of tears flowed down Minseok’s face as he nodded and held onto his mom’s hand.

“When your father and I died, we were told that our lives made us belong in Purgatory, but our deaths allowed us into Heaven. We picked the latter because we thought that you and Minwoo would eventually arrive here too. It was… peaceful at first. We hoped that you would have a long life and wouldn’t get to heaven for a while. If after a long life on Earth, the years could make the past fade, then maybe you would want us to be your family again.”

She sighed, reaching her other hand to her husband.

“But we were running away. Heaven makes people admit what they know they’ve done wrong, and over the years, we realized all the ways we hurt you. There’s no excuse to why we did and said what we did. Grief can’t excuse it, and neither can stress or anything else, but we used them as such because we couldn’t come to terms that we were bitter. Bitter that we had no time to ourselves, and money was always an issue. I can’t even say it’s because we couldn’t give you two those family trips or some money to go have fun. We were the ones who wanted that for ourselves. We were the selfish ones. We didn’t appreciate you like we should’ve. We were bad people and bad parents, so we understand if you don’t want to see us again.”

Minseok sniffled, holding onto both his parents.

“I didn’t say that. I want to see you again after this. I want to. And you’re both still your own people. It’s not wrong to want that after making a family, but me and Minwoo needed you. Even if we still all had work or school the next day, we could've at least laughed or complained together. But we never tried.”

“No, you tried, Minseok. It was us who didn't, too spiteful of what we didn't have. We see that now. You were only doing your best. Don't cry, Snap Pea.”

He couldn't do as his mother asked when the words he had always been desperate to hear finally wreathed into his heart. He had done his best, right? In life, before demons and angels, when he tried to keep his family together even after tragedy, it hadn't been wrong to cling to what they meant to him, right? For a second, doubt rushed up his chest and choked him. He gripped his parents tighter.

“After what happened, I just always thought that you would still…”

“No, Snap Pea. We could never hate you, and we no longer blame you. We shouldn’t have done that in the first place. You’re always welcome with us.”

They squished him in a squeezing hug, and Minseok let out all the breath that he had been holding. Relief filled him, but he pulled back. It was almost unreal, unbelievable. He had to look from his mom to his dad and back to confirm that they no longer held apathy and rage in their eyes, squeeze their hands and hold them to his face to confirm that they stood by him. Slowly, the relief no longer felt fake, solidifying, reassuring. The heavy curtains across his shoulders shed most of its layers away as his parents smiled at him, wiped the last fall of tears on his face. He hadn’t felt this light in so long.

“Now, Snap Pea, let’s get up from the walkway. We can’t really eat as souls, so I can’t make anything for you to eat, but a chair