Chapter Text
“You can't keep going down here like this.”
There was no need for Lucas to turn around to know who it was who spoke. He felt Jungwoo’s presence even before he heard his voice, felt the room practically close in on him as soon as the other appeared behind him, enveloping him whole yet not at all suffocating. His mere presence made him feel calm almost, albeit the feeling was forced and unwanted. It was as if a wave of something unknown washed over him, urging him to relax, urging him to calm down calm down calm down .
“Stop doing that,” Lucas muttered through gritted teeth, sounding defeated all of the sudden, unable to resist the other’s effect on him. But then again, who was he to fight against the will of an angel? “You don't need to compel me to calm down, I'm fine.”
Perhaps it was a horrible idea to lie to an angel like this and for a beat, Lucas waited for some sort of punishment to befall him. What was it that they do to sinners? Smite them? After a minute or two, Jungwoo lifted his magik with a sigh, sidling up next to Lucas and turned to face what the boy has been looking at for hours instead.
“She came to visit again, I see.”
The angel was referring to the woman sitting right next to the tiny hospital bed, slumped over a young man's sleeping body, her hand gripping his tightly in her sleep. Even from this angle, Lucas could see traces of fatigue on her face – her cheekbones were more prominent than from when he has last seen her, her cheeks now drawn and almost hollow while the dark circles under her eyes appeared striking even against her naturally tanned skin. She looked so tired, and he could not understand why she would keep punishing herself like so. He could not understand why she would put herself in such a situation, would make it harder on herself when it would have been much easier for her to just leave and get that much needed sleep.
It would have been so much easier if she was to leave and just give up.
Reluctantly, his eyes trailed upwards the arm she held, stopping just as he saw the sleeping boy’s face and visibly winced despite himself. The boy looked sickly like this: limbs skinny and uncharacteristically pale, the once spotless face now marred with slowly healing scars and bruises, while the constant beeping of the machine next to him remained the only giveaway that he was indeed alive and breathing.
Pathetic .
Lucas looked away.
“I don't know why she keeps visiting. It's not like I'm going to wake up soon.”
For once, he was rather grateful that he could not be heard by anyone else but Jungwoo. For once, he was grateful to be in his current state – a spirit, invisible to everyone around him.
“She's your mother.”
There was a hint of disappointment in Jungwoo’s voice then, which took Lucas by surprise, making him turn to face the angel as if checking to see if it was indeed him who spoke. It wasn't always that he heard the other speak in such a way. The angel had always been gentle, had always been calm and collected around him and everyone else. Not once has he showed anything remotely close to a negative emotion, and Lucas had been under the angel’s care for more than three months now.
He sighed. “I'm just saying, I wouldn't be upset if she stopped coming. I was a shit son anyway. I don't see why she would even want to keep waiting for me to wake up from this coma.”
It was all his fault, after all. He was in such a position because of his own recklessness, his own misplaced desire to find meaning in his life by willingly putting it in danger constantly. He did nothing but make his mother feel hurt and cry in the past, so why was she even wasting her time and energy on someone like him still?
He wouldn't blame her if she was to give up on him.
He wouldn't blame her if she stopped waiting.
He wouldn't blame her if she was to just let him die.
“Don't talk like that,” Jungwoo looked at Lucas, kind eyes meeting his own. “How ever you were before, you're still her son. She loves you. And we're doing everything we can to make sure you will wake up and live again, okay?” A hand took Lucas’ and for some bizarre reason, he felt the urge to never let go. For some reason, that wave of calmness and being at peace washed over him once more but this time, he knew it wasn't because of the other's magik. “You'll be back in your body soon, I promise.”
For once in the past three months, Lucas found himself smiling again.