“So...” Kris starts after they have been sitting together at the kitchen table in silence for about fifteen minutes in which Kris has eaten the breakfast and has drunken the coffee the boy has prepared for him while the boy has just been watching him eat. “You’re... my... guardian angel.”

It isn’t a question. Kris has come to the conclusion that he isn’t crazy. It can’t be just his imagination; the bacon and the coffee seem pretty real to him. And when the boy touched him, it hasn’t really felt like only his imagination either. So the boy is really in the apartment. Which only left the possibility of the boy being a lunatic who escaped from asylum. But apart from the whole guardian angel thing the boy doesn’t really sound or behave crazy. It’s confusing. But Kris starts to consider that the boy’s story is true anyway. It would explain a lot. How the boy has so suddenly appeared in the apartment or in front of him when he wanted to call the police. Or how the boy seems to know so much about him and his problems. If the boy was just a random madman, then where should he know those things from? It doesn’t make sense. Not that the boy being a guardian angel makes much sense but... Oh to hell with it, why not? Kris has already heard crazier things in his life... Not many but a few. His children had had a livid imagination.

“Yes, I am. I was assigned to you when you were born.”

“So, like... You’ve been running around with me my whole life.”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“And when I fell into that lake as a kid...?”

“I pulled you out. I’ve already saved your life quite some times. You humans really have no idea how dangerous you live... You don’t notice half the things we save you from! If it hadn’t been for me, you would’ve already been killed in a car accident long ago or so...”

“Well, umm... Thanks, I guess,” Kris says and takes another sip from his coffee. He can’t remember the last time he has felt this good. Not that “this good” means good. But it’s an improvement

Suho shrugs. “You’re welcome. And I’ve had far worse than you. Some people are just so prone to accidents, it’s not even funny anymore.”

Kris is silent for a few minutes, contemplating his next question.

“Can I... Can I ask how... how you died?”

The boy looks intently at him, then he shrugs again. “Nothing special. I was out too long in the cold one day. Pneumonia. Don’t remember much of it. Don’t remember much of my human life in general. You start losing those memories along the way. I don’t even remember my parents’ names. Or if I had siblings. Pets. I don’t know.”

“That must be horrible...”

“It’s okay,” Suho shrugs. “I mean, after my death most of my memories were already gone. So I never really missed them. And the others...”

“But don’t you want to know more about your family sometimes?”

“Actually, no. Not really. Not when I’m in guardian angel mode, I don’t know what else to call it.”

“Guardian angel mode?”

“Yes. It’s like... We don’t really exist, except that we do and... It’s complicated. We’re there, as spirits, we don’t have much in common with humans anymore when we’re like this. We don’t have a body or so. We just... exist somehow but as I said, not really. We don’t do anything humans do and we don’t remember when we’re like this. Not about things that regard us anyway. I could still remember anything from those who I protect in guardian angel mode. That’s because that’s our purpose. But apart from that? Nothing. In this form though, in a human body... Some memories I haven’t completely forgotten yet come back. And then I also start wondering about where I come from and stuff.”

“Sounds... Stupid.”

“No, it’s not. It helps us. Imagine that every time we have to save someone, we get memories of our families and then remember that they’re most likely all dead by now and so. It would influence us and perhaps we wouldn’t be able to save that person anymore.”

“Oh,” Kris says. He knows how much it hurts to know the own family is dead.

“I don’t ever want to forget my family,” he mutters. It hurts, yes, but he needs it. He needs to remember them.

“You won’t forget them. Not as long as you’re alive. But you need to stop hurting yourself over the memories. And that’s my job right now. To help you with that.”

“What if I don’t want that?”

Suho raises an eyebrow. “You want to keep suffering? It won’t make them come back, you know?”

“Of course it doesn’t! But...”

“But you feel guilty for not having been there when it happened so you keep beating yourself up over this as some kind of repentance,” the boy finishes the sentence for him and Kris stares at him, not saying anything. He doesn’t want to talk about that anymore.

He finishes breakfast in silence and when he has eaten everything, Suho takes the empty cup and plate and puts them away in the dishwasher. Then he turns to Kris again.

“Has anyone told you lately that you stink? Seriously, take a shower.”