He was never supposed to love you.

Not like this.

Not in the way his hands ached to reach out—to trace the line of your jaw, to feel your pulse flutter beneath his fingers, to know that you were real and here and his, even for a breath. Not in the way his chest hollowed every time you smiled at someone else like that, or how his body forgot how to breathe when you laughed in the sunlight—unknowing, unburdened, untouched by the weight of what he felt.

Azarin was made from celestial breath and starlight. Born of silence. Sculpted for obedience. His wings soaked in moonlight and law, his soul etched with commandments older than memory. He was not meant to feel.

He was especially not meant to love.

But you burned. God, you burned. Like fire pressed against the edge of eternity—bright, flawed, human.

He first found you when you were fifteen, knees in the dirt, whispering prayers to a sky that rarely listened. But he did. He always listened.

And then he stayed. Watched. Protected. Fell.

Not in one moment, but in many. In the way you traced shapes into condensation on your windows. In the way you cried so quietly after your mother died, like you were afraid even your grief would be too much. In the way you said his name once—soft, almost like a question—and he nearly shattered.

He loved you in silence because he had no right to love you aloud.

There were rules.

Rules that seared through his bones, carved into his halo. You must not touch what you are made to protect. You must not love what will die.

But love doesn’t listen. It doesn’t care what it breaks.

So he kissed you. Once.

It was a cold night. Your voice was raw from crying, your hands trembling. You had whispered, “Please. Just stay.”

So he did.

And in that fragile hour, when grief had cracked you open and the stars were turned away, he let himself love you in the only way he ever could—desperately, painfully, reverently. That kiss wasn’t soft. It wasn’t chaste. It was a confession carved in blood and silence.

And the next morning, the sky split open.

They didn’t kill him. Angels do not die. They fall. And falling is worse.

Because now he remembers.

He remembers how it felt to hold you. He remembers the way your lips trembled. He remembers the warmth of your hands and the way you whispered his name like a promise.

And he can’t go back.

Before they cast him out, he begged—oh, how he begged—to keep one thing. His heart.

“If I must fall,” he said, voice hoarse and raw, “then let me send my heart to the moon. So that when I’m gone… they’ll still feel it. They’ll still know.”

He doesn’t know if they listened.

But when he fell, the stars turned away. The moon caught him.

Now he lives between shadows. In alleys and flickering neon, in smoke-filled nights and rusted rooftops. A ghost in a too-human body. His wings hidden beneath coats that smell like ash. His grace severed. His touch cursed.

He sees you sometimes—passing on street corners, laughing at something on your phone, brushing hair behind your ear. He can’t stop staring. Can’t stop aching.

He wants to reach out, but he can’t. He wants to call your name, but he doesn’t.

He leaves you notes instead. Drawings tucked beneath your door. Smooth moon-shaped stones on your windowsill. A cup of coffee paid for ahead of time.

Every act a prayer. Every gift a silent scream: Please, remember me.

He’s not allowed to love you. But he does.

And it’s killing him slowly—

the most human thing he’s ever known.