Kris is sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the TV where some random show is on. He isn’t really watching though, he hasn’t really watched anything since it happened. He just lets the TV run to chase away the silence.

He is freshly showered, washed his hair and shaved again and he put on the fresh clothes that had been lying there, ready for him when he had come out of the bathroom. Suho’s doing most likely. Kris almost looks like a human again; at least that’s what Suho had said when Kris had come into the living room. Doesn’t mean that Kris feels like a human again though the shower did make him feel a bit better.

Suho is sitting next to him on the couch, actually watching the TV Show and laughing occasionally when something funny happens. Suho is good company. He doesn’t talk too much but just enough. And he knows when Kris wants to be left alone. A guardian angel thing, probably.

“How do you become a guardian angel?” Kris suddenly asks and immediately manages to draw the boy’s attention away from the TV. One more thing that makes the boy good company. Whenever Kris feels the need to talk, he listens. No matter what.

“I don’t think there are specific rules for that,” he answers. “Behave well during your lifetime. Be nice to others. Don’t commit too many sins. Though “too many” is obviously a rather subjective matter. And then, when you’re dead... I dunno, behave. Prove yourself to be trustworthy. And at some point you perhaps are promoted to be a guardian angel. You have to be in business for a few years of course.”

“Business?” Kris asks slightly disbelieving. “It’s like a business Up There?”

“Sure it is. There’s Him, of course, He’s the big boss. Have never actually met Him. And then there’s His son, of course. Basically the vice president if you want to use business terms. Then come the archangels, a pretty arrogant bunch if you ask me, and then we, the guardian angels. And the rest are mostly random angels who do all kinds of things. Too complicated to get into it in detail.”

“Huh. Wow.”

Suho smiles. “Well, even Up There we need some kind of structure. Things would get messed up otherwise. It’s all handled pretty strictly Up There, in fact.”

“So, how many protégés does a guardian angel have?”

(pro·té·gé --- a person who is guided and supported by an older and more experienced or influential person)

“Depends. There are some who have around 20 but those are the ones who are already several hundred years old. Really, it depends on your experience and on how good you do your job. I have three protégés at the moment. You and two others. I haven’t been a guardian angel for that long now. You were the first protégé I got.”

“And what’s happened with the other two protégés you have now that you’re here all the time?”

“We got someone who took over the job of looking after them while I’m busy with you of course. We can’t just leave them without a guardian angel. But I do pay them a visit every once in a while to see if everything’s okay. When you’re asleep.”

“Oh,” Kris says. He doesn’t like the thought of Suho leaving him sometimes. He doesn’t know why but he has already gotten used to the angel’s presence and he somehow likes having the boy around. He doesn’t want to share his angel. He is... jealous.

Suho looks back at the screen while Kris tries to deal with that new discovery. Is he jealous? What the is wrong with him? The boy isn’t anything special and Kris should want to get rid of him, shouldn’t he? But he doesn’t want that and the boy is special.

“This is all so screwed up,” he mutters but the boy chooses to ignore him. He always knows when Kris says things that aren’t really directed at him.

They fall into silence but after a while, Suho speaks again.

“You know, I’m sure they will eventually become guardian angels too.”

The boy doesn’t have to say who he means with ‘they’. Kris knows it. His family. And somehow, the thought of them as guardian angels makes the pain a bit easier to bear.