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“I didn’t really fall, i just, you know… sauntered vaguely downwards.”
It’s a Wednesday morning when he gets the letter; not that he would know exactly the difference in between days or even the time itself but Soonyoung liked to think he still had a grasp at how the passage of time worked, even if it didn’t really anymore.
The envelope was simple, white with a black stamp that looked like it belongs to some fancy over the top king of all, except instead of a crown or the initials of said king the stamp was adorned by a beast with cartoony looking reptile eyes and long horns that felt like extended forever. A little tacky if he was being honest but lucifer was never known to be particularly subtle about anything.
“Looking at it won’t make it go away soonie” there was a sigh coming from the other male in the room “Look I’m sorry I don’t know what he wants but it can be that bad right? You never did anything to piss him off did you”
Well he could think of a few things, one or two, maybe. I mean he wasn’t exactly a saint – granted his status as one of the first angels to fall – but he knew of demons that were way worse than him, so that brings us to Soonyoung’s current dilemma, why would the bad lord himself send him a fucking letter.
“I don’t wanna open Hannie, what if he figured I was the one who stole all the wine last burning fest and now wants to throw me into the pit?? “ he wave the letter franticly at the others face, his voice getting higher and higher as he continued to speak “I can’t go into the pit I just scored a date with that gatekeeper over at the south barrier! ”
“Okay okay calm down kid you are not getting thrown into the pit for a bit of stolen wine, not even lucifer is that cruel stop screaming”
“First of all, you don’t know that you saw him like twice, and second it was really good wine me and Minghao got smashed that night for like two whole hours! It was good stuff” Jeonghan rolled his eyes and promptly snatch the letter from the other man
“Well if you’re not opening then I will”
“Don’t you dare Yoon Jeonghan give me that letter back right now”
“Oh, come and get it then sweetie”
It took a good five minutes to take the letter away from Jeonghan’s hands, another five until he master the courage to open it and even then about three for him to finally open his eyes and make out the contents of it; of course they wouldn’t know that because as establish time doesn’t really work in hell, but if it did they would realize that it took about ten minutes for Soonyoung to finally stop screaming .
Apparently, Satan had big plans for Soonyoung.
“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
He meets Wonwoo a little while after the letter incident – that’s how he decided to call it in the end still refusing to believe what was written, preferring to deny the task he’s been assigned to, except of course, there wasn’t really an easy way to turn down the devil, and in the end fate was not on his side granted why he’s currently standing at the top of once to became incredibly famous, Garden of Eden.
It was a surprise for both sides really, ever since the great fall angels and newly denominated demons had always been kept separated; God was felling particularly merciful at that time, splitting the universe in a way that both sides wouldn’t really interact with each other and were capable of carrying their existence in relative peace.
But the thing is, just like Soonyoung God is also known to be a moody bitch sometimes, so naturally It shouldn’t really be a surprise when she announced proudly to the whole universe that a brand new “neutral” zone was being created, in this case Earth.
“Hey do I know you?” The angel spoke
“Well you must certainly do not! As for my kind doesn’t interact with yours”
“Why do you talk that way, also it hasn’t been that long since the fall I think we went to school together”
Soonyoung took a deep breath, he hasn’t talked to a proper angel in centuries and Wonwoo didn’t really sound like the easiest one to deal with so instead of answering the other he forced his glare instead to the very first couple of humans making their way out of the Garden and into the fresh, new and scary Earth.
“Wait, isn’t that your sword in Adam’s hand?” Soonyoung turned back to the angel who in a weird movement fixed the glasses on his face in attempt to hide what seem like a blush.
“Well, you see” he looked nervous “I couldn’t just let them go like that could I? There are a lot of creatures out there looking for a human snack after all”
Soonyoung smiled seeing the angel struggle to keep himself in place, it was clear that he was facing some kind of dilemma and something inside him was incredibly amused by it.
“Say Wonwoo” he said as the first ever rain was starting to fall over their wings “Wouldn’t it be funny if we both got it wrong? Like me with the apple and you with the sword, imagine if we both fucked up and I did the good thing while you did the bad one”
The look on Wonwoo’s face that day would remain forever engraved in Soonyoung’s memories.
“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.”
They see each other a lot after that and the sight of Wonwoo had become a constant in Soonyoung’s journey.
The first few 1000 years of said journey are incredible boring, all the tasks he’s assigned to are meaningless in the grand scheme of things, mostly doing a lot of convincing people to steal or cheat on their partners and all that easy stuff got old really quick. What didn’t got old on the other hand was the angel that always seem to appear when he was at the peak of his boredom.
Wonwoo wasn’t really what Soonyoung expect him to be. In the beginning when they saw each other there was a clear tension in the air, knowing that they were both working for opposite sides, Soonyoung always tried to come up with the most diabolic plans to interfere with the others job and Wonwoo did pretty much the same. After a while though, they both realized that the experience of time on immortal beings like them was an incredibly lonely experience, and as an unspoken agreement they stop trying to own up each other and develop a weird almost-like friendship.
“Do you think I could get a manuscript of Hamlet?” Wonwoo suddenly asked staring at the window next to the table they were both sitting in.
“I don’t know, maybe but why would you want that crap anyway its been almost two weeks and only two people showed up to watch the play” Wonwoo’s eyes were on him now and the light coming from the window was reflecting on the lenses of his glasses. He looked extra stupid like that, with bright red circles of light in the middle of his face. Soonyoung made sure to save the image in his head as a way to laugh about it later.
“I thought it was brilliant, a shame people didn’t really appreciate as they should” the angel sight “Also I told you I’m thinking about opening a book shop in the future, it would be nice to have exclusives”
The sun went down a little bit more, and as Wonwoo continue to ramble about the play and how much he liked it the big circles of light disappear into a shear coting of red glow over the angel. He was mesmerized by the sight, Wonwoo’s curly hair gently being bathe in light forming almost like an aura around his head making Soonyoung not want to look away from it.
Later, as they left the bar and moved on to different pathways Soonyoung was convinced it was just the light and the weird aura thing that had made his head a little fuzzy.
And if on the next day Shakespeare himself had appear onto Wonwoo’s door delivering his first ever manuscript of Hamlet and inviting him to their last screening, witch, coincidentally had being the most crowded one with almost half the town population in it, Soonyoung would swear it had nothing to do with him.