Guard Our Wings: The One With Their First Christmas (by miangel)
Title : Guard Our Wings: The One With the Christmas Spirit (fa la la la la, la la la la~)
Author : miangel
Pairing(s) : Suho-centric with hints of Kris/Tao, Lay/Chen, Xiumin/Luhan/Sehun, Suho/D.O, Kai/D.O, Chanyeol/Baekhyun.
Genre : guardian angel AU, a sequel of some sort to my SNCJ Reverse Big Bang entry, Guard Our Wings (some references are made to things occurring in that fic, so it is advisable to read, but this story will still make sense if you decide not to)
Rating : PG-13
Warnings : brief mentions of sex toys
Word count : ~10,000 words
Summary : They’d been put in charge of Christmas. Each angel was expected to contribute in letting people of the earth feel the Christmas spirit. Suho was deeply worried. And he had every right to be.
A/N: A little Christmas fic to celebrate the holidays. Also, the title follows the format of Friends episode titles, just fyi. Enjoy! :)
***
Spread a little Christmas cheer, he’d been told. Let people feel some of that holiday spirit.
There were some things Suho thought should never have been within the responsibilities of being a guardian and making sure people of the world were rejoicing in the merry that is Christmas was one of them. But the orders had been clear, Angel Leeteuk’s wishes were words of law no matter how he would’ve hoped otherwise.
It wasn’t that Suho was against the idea. Far from it, he was all for making people happy, putting smiles on their faces during the one time of the year when everybody had a legitimate reason to fall into their childish whims once again. If he had enough power to supply the entire world with eternal joy, he’d do so without a second thought. The only problem were the eleven other winged people sitting in the circle they had formed, all of whom were staring at Suho as though he’d declared his impending death (though he thought they’d probably look immensely happier if it had been his death he was announcing).
“What?”
Jongdae had always been one to break silences.
“You want us to do what?”
And there was Baekhyun following in.
Cue the barrage of complaints.
“But hyung.”
“That’ll be so much work.”
“I’m allergic to trees.”
“Ew…there’ll be so many kids.”
“What if I catch a cold?”
“Don’t we have worker’s rights or something? I demand my vacation rights!”
“Guardians don’t have a union, moron.”
“Urgh.”
Suho flicked a finger and all eleven guardians were simultaneously drenched in a sudden rush of rain water. Where and how the water came, nobody knew, the clouds above white and fluffy and the sun innocently beating down upon them. It made them suddenly fear Suho’s capabilities. Regardless, it served its purpose: they all shut up.
“I understand this is sudden and I understand that Christmas is barely a week away, but Leeteuk wants this done immediately,” Suho said.
“Why can’t you just say no?” Chen asked, shaking his arms and wings around to dry them, only to effectively further drench the people around him. Lay gave a soft sigh while Kai merely seemed gleeful for an excuse to get rid of his wet clothes.
“Leeteuk is my supervisor and it is an order,” Suho promptly answered.
Sehun sniggered, muttering, “Pushover.” He currently had a warm breeze summoned to dry himself, Luhan and Tao clinging to either sides of him, attempting to benefit from the wind too.
Suho ignored him, silently wondering when Sehun had transformed from the shy, insecure young boy to someone with so much snark and disrespect. Maybe Luhan had not been as good of an influence as Suho had initially thought.
“I don’t care how you do this, but I will be checking up on each and every one of you until Christmas Eve, so I expect the best efforts and the most joyous Christmas East Asia has ever seen!” Suho gave them all a briefly bright, beaming smile. He then turned very sober. “Anyone who fails to do otherwise will have to answer to my vice.”
Nine pairs of eyes slowly diverted to Kris, the tall guardian looking none too pleased that his hair was matted and his clothes were ruined, the glare he was sending Suho worthy of a thousand suns, though Suho barely flinched. All nine guardians swallowed deeply, turning away quickly. Tao was the only guardian who didn’t seem perturbed by Kris’ evidently murderous mood, trying to tug Kris into Sehun’s warm, drying wind.
Suho was pleased to see no further objections arise at the threat. “Well, good luck to all of you and…Merry Christmas!”
Suho disappeared with a rush of wind, his wings pushing him off the ground and into the clear skies. They all watched him leave with scowls and resigned expressions on their face, muttering among themselves on what they could do to possibly fulfill this duty.
“Does this mean we get a Christmas bonus?”
Chen was promptly ignored.
***
Shanghai, China
Suho froze in the middle of what was supposed to be Shanghai’s central, busiest, most-crowded, main street, Nanjing Road. No, there was still probably half the Chinese population there (a few spatters of foreigners too), dressed to the nines, travelling mostly in groups and pairs, heavily laden with shopping bags and boxes of what he deemed were Christmas gifts. There was only one problem: they were all, much like Suho’s initial reaction, frozen. Unmoving. Immobile. Motionless. Still.
As far as Suho knew, Madame Tussaud’s had not expanded its exhibition to depict an entire street of life-like statues. No, there was definitely another explanation for the sudden stationary condition of everyone within a couple of miles’ radius. And Suho knew exactly what it was. More specifically, who.
(After quite a painstaking search) He found him in one of the city’s largest department stores, in one specific store boasting lavish branded items and exclusivity and milling with considerably fewer people than the outside streets had. It was hard to miss the only moving being amidst the sea of what seemed to be mannequins. The wings were also a dead giveaway.
“Tao.”
The guardian looked up from where he had been pouring over what seemed to be a sale sign, face lighting up upon recognizing Suho. “Oh hey hyung!” He promptly returned to the task at hand.
“What in the world are you doing?” Suho demanded.
“Hm?” Tao looked up again, an innocently confused expression on his face. Suho must’ve been crazy for ever thinking the kid could be harmful. “What do you mean what am I doing?” Then again, his naïve indifference proved to be quite a strain on patience at the worst of times.
Suho waved his arms around at the frozen people. “Why in the world did you stop time?”
Tao blinked. “Oh,” he put a finger to his lips, looking around him at the unmoving people, seeming to finally realize how bizarre the scene he’d created was. “Well, I was doing what you told us to do: spreading some Christmas cheer.”
Suho narrowed his eyes, dodging his way through women and bags and displays to where Tao stood. “And what exactly did you have planned?”
A smile broke over Tao’s face as he stepped aside, gesturing proudly at what he’d been working on. Suho frowned, unsure of what Tao was so delightedly showing him. He glanced up at Tao, hoping for some sort of hint towards what he was supposed to be looking at, but Tao merely pointed insistently at the sign declaring the 80% sale for the items on display.
Wait.
“Tao, that’s stealing!”
Tao look scandalized. “No, it’s not!” he countered, arguing his case before Suho could scold him anymore. “Look, every person should have the right to buy nice, branded clothes for Christmas, OK? Not just rich snobs swimming in multiple full bank accounts. Plus, I’m going to personally make sure everyone looks stunning for the holidays.”
Suho narrowed his eyes, fearing the answer to the question he was about to voice. “And how do you plan on doing that?”
“I’m going to mix and match their clothes myself, of course,” Tao said, rolling his eyes. “Thus, the whole freezing time thing! So I can check whatever people are buying and whether it’s the right purchase for them.”
Suho let out a deep sigh. “Tao, this is abuse of power, not to mention the repercussions! Have you ever thought about how much money the store would lose if you turned their previously 30% discounts to 80%? Wouldn’t the owners get suspicious?”
“Already ahead of you on that one,” Tao declared brightly. “I asked Luhan-ge to meddle with the management’s mind a bit, so there won’t be a problem. They can stand to lose a few thousand dollars anyway. The more purchases, the more income, it’ll up their profits anyway. I counted.”
Suho didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled that Tao had thought things so thoroughly.
“Oh, and I’m also giving away these special shopping vouchers for people who are less fortunate,” he held up a thick wad of money-like paper, grinning. “Help me hand these out while you’re off checking on everyone else?”
He really didn’t have much of a choice or another say in the issue, Tao promptly handing over half of the vouchers to Suho and gliding off to another sale sign, working on rewriting the number written. He had to give Tao credit though: his penmanship was almost faultless. And the idea wasn’t all that bad. In essence, he was giving to people in need and taking from those who were privileged. Like a modern day Robin Hood. A modern day Robin Hood squealing over branded, animal-print underwear.
Suho decided it was time for him to take his leave.
***
Macau
If Suho thought Tao stopping time in downtown Shanghai had been a real eye-opener, he had been gravely mistaken. Seeing the lakes and rivers of Macau all iced over, frozen solid, small ships stranded without any possibility of trying to pull themselves out and yacht owners at a loss as to how to save their precious boats really made one stop to think whether things were really happening. The sight really took one’s breath away; Suho was quite literally finding himself suffocating on lack of air.
“Like what I did?”
Turning to the guardian appearing beside him, Suho gaped, unable to form words coherent enough to express the turmoil going inside his head, from fear of what Angel Leeteuk would do if he ever found to foolproof plans on how to make sure Angel Leeteuk never found out about this.
“It was pretty tiring, took real concentration, especially that Pearl River Delta, man that was one major power exertion, but hey, I did it! I made natural ice skating rinks for everyone in Macau.”
Suho spluttered, articulation still refusing to return. “What. How. Why.”
“Oh you mean why I thought up of this brilliant idea?” Xiumin asked. Suho would’ve substituted the word brilliant for are-you-out-of-your-mind if he’d been capable of speaking. Xiumin continued, undeterred. “Well, I know a lot of people vacation to Macau for the Christmas holidays, so I thought, hey, what could be more Christmassy than having a gigantic ice rink they can all play in without having to pay a single cent?”
Suho continued to open and close his mouth, uttering not a single sound.
Xiumin grinned, mistaking Suho’s silence for awe. “Like I said, brilliant, isn’t it?”
People were panicking, those previously on boats screaming for help to be brought back on land, some even precariously walking on the frozen water, testing its sturdiness in holding their weight. Suho had to at least commend Xiumin on ensuring he had frozen enough depth of the water to ensure none would suddenly crack and cave under the burden of people. There was nothing Christmassy about freezing to death in ice-cold waters. Or hypothermia, for that matter.
Suho watched a television news crew nearby reporting the bizarre event, catching phrases like ‘global warming’, ‘unknown causes’ and ‘scientists are confounded’. There’d be no way scientists could figure out guardian angels were behind the phenomenon.
“The best part’s about to come though,” Xiumin said, grin widening exponentially.
“What-.”
A small, glimmering white ball of ice cold, frozen water floated in front of Suho. It was peculiar and Suho had no clue what it was, dissolving upon his touch. By the time it melted in his hands and the realization hit him, others had fallen more rapidly in big groups and were slowly creating small piles of white on what had been a green, grassy ground. The news crew effectively went into a craze reporting the sudden weather anomaly.
“Ice skating and snow. It can’t get more Christmassy than this!” Xiumin looked positively delighted.
The people around them, however, seemed to have an adverse reaction to the falling snow.
“They don’t seem to be happy to see snow though,” Xiumin observed, watching a group of young people stare wide-eyed at each other, trembling in their estimations of the looming doomsday predicted.
“For good reason, Xiumin,” Suho finally managed to piece his mind together again, letting out a deep sigh. “It’s not supposed to snow in Macau. Like ever.”
Xiumin looked at Suho. “So?”
“So,” Suho said slowly, “what you just did is the equivalent of turning Antarctica into a beach resort.”
The news crew was having a field day with the day’s strange events, undecided on how to inform their viewers in reacting to the unnatural weather occurrence. Suho gave up any hope of Angel Leeteuk not noticing any oddities, knowing the news would spread around the world, and eventually to Angel Leeteuk’s ears, by the end of the day.
The guilty perpetrator seemed to be quite nonchalant, though. “Hey, it’s Christmas. Miracles happen,” Xiumin reasoned.
And seeing little kids fight off their parents’ warning holds and scolding to run gleefully onto the grass, catching the falling snow and attempting to initiate snow fights and create snow angels with the limited snow formed, Suho thought that maybe one miracle couldn’t hurt.
***
Taipei, Taiwan
Seeing whom he had deemed his sanest subordinate resort to creating something akin to global terror by making snow fall in a snow-free place made Suho fear what some of his less sane guardians were doing. Taipei seemed to be snow free and time seemed to flow as it should be, allowing Suho to breathe a small sigh of relief. A brief fly over the city and a general check of the entire country proved to Suho that nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Far from being consoled, an uneasy feeling was beginning to settle in Suho’s gut. The fact that he had yet to find Chen was also deeply troubling him.
A shrill scream coming from one of the many tall apartment buildings came almost as a relief.
An elderly lady stood, or, well, leaned heavily on her door frame, clutching at her chest as she tried to control her erratic heartbeat. Suho couldn’t understand why the lady seemed so genuinely terrified at entering what he supposed was her own apartment, feeling the Christmas carol resounding in the place to be quite festive. He wasn’t given much time to ponder though, another scream reaching his ears from a few buildings away, a middle-aged man this time, expression reflecting that of the elderly woman: shock and confused. Christmas carols were also playing in his apartment.
Suho began to think there was some sort of pattern he was missing.
It wasn’t until the sixth calling scream (a young woman who was convinced someone had broke into her home and was lurking somewhere, awaiting to pounce, Suho had to spend quite a while exerting his power to calm her) that he realized the bursts of Christmas carols were no mere coincidence. In fact, if his deductions were correct, they were the exact source of the problem. It had Chen’s name written all over it and the seventh victim (a disgruntled man returning from work) proved both his guesses true.
“The fuck is wrong with this thing? I turn my fucking light on and fucking Jingle Bells is playing? The fuck kind of prank is this?”
It was safe to say the man was not amused. But at the very least, Suho now knew what was causing the seemingly random outbursts of carols in people’s homes.
“Not the traditional Jingle Bells sort of guy, huh? I knew I should’ve stuck to Jingle Bell Rock.”
Suho almost let out his own inhuman shriek of surprise. But no, guardians did not shriek, so he settled for a stifled squeak of surprise though having no power over his madly flapping wings. Chen stared amusedly at Suho, trademark smirk on his face and Suho knew Chen’s sudden startling appearance had very much been intentional.
“What is with you and loud bursts of music?” Suho asked, trying to seem unperturbed but furtively attempting to calm his heart beat down.
“Oh come on! What’s Christmas without its carols?” Chen said, gesturing openly at the music still playing loudly in the upset man’s apartment despite the man’s attempt at destroying his light switch.
Suho took pity on the man and spread his wings wide, a silver glow shining from them briefly before the music died down and eventually stopped. The apartment owner looked around, confused as to how his apartment had returned to its original silence. Shaking his head, seeming to convince himself it was some sort of stupid prank (he really wasn’t too far from the truth), the man walked further into his apartment, grumbling about stupid holidays.
“Why’d you have to go and do that?” Chen whined.
Suho stared at him in disbelief. “Most people don’t appreciate coming into their home, turning on their lights and having random music playing at full blast.”
Chen gasped, looking for the world, scandalized. “It’s not just ‘random music’.” Suho chose to ignore the quotation marks he made and the roll of his eyes. “It’s Christmas carols, hyung! There aren’t any carolers in Taipei so I had to make sure people were feeling the Christmas joy somehow.”
Suho massaged the bridge of his nose. “How did you even-.”
“Oh that was easy!” Chen said brightly. “Watch.”
Chen dragged a reluctant Suho to the bedroom the apartment inhabitant was about to enter. He watched Chen place a finger mere inches away from the light switch, a small spark of electricity running between the finger and the switch. Predictably, when the man flipped the switch on, Jingle Bell Rock began playing at full volume.
“FOR THE LOVE OF-.”
Suho annulled Chen’s little trick once more, wings extending almost automatically and silvery glow released before the man could further curse his mouth off.
Chen rolled his eyes. “Seriously, hyung. Lighten up a bit. It’s only music.”
“Fine,” Suho gave in. “But at least turn it down a bit. Make it seem like a background sound or something so people will actually appreciate it.”
Chen narrowed his eyes in condescension at the man now flopped on his bed. “Tsk. Peasants. Don’t know how to appreciate good music.”
“Chen,” Suho said warningly.
He held his hands up in surrender.”Alright, alright, I’ll tone it down a bit.”
“Thank you,” Suho said, sighing in relief. He didn’t like the glint that had suddenly taken on in Chen’s eyes though. Nor the way he had started rubbing his hands together in some sort of anticipation.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a couple of apartment buildings that need to be brought joy to their world.”
Chen flew off with a hum of, “Falalalala lalalala.”
***
A cloud above the sea
Suho came across Luhan as he was returning to mainland China, sat atop a cloud hovering above the South China Sea, sitting cross-legged, eyes closed meditatively, a small smile twitching his lips. He sat next to the absent-mindedly humming guardian, careful not to disrupt the brown wings spread out on both his sides.
“Chen’s carols are catchy, aren’t they?” Luhan said as Suho shared his cloud, eyes still shut.
“Contagiously,” Suho muttered, fighting the incessant play of Jingle Bells in his head.
“D.O is growing mistletoe,” Luhan stated.
Suho didn’t know why that piece of information would be important but he feared the lightly teasing lilt Luhan’s voice had taken on. Choosing to ignore whatever Luhan was hinting at, he focused on the subtle implication behind what Luhan had just revealed.
“You know what everyone is doing,” Suho said.
“I do,” Luhan nodded.
“You can tell me if any of the other guardians are doing anything stupid,” he looked to Luhan with hope, the other guardian still serenely meditating.
“I could,” Luhan said.
“But…you’re not going to, are you?” Suho said dejectedly, shoulders slumping.
“Why would I take the fun out of having you find out for yourself?” Luhan’s smile was full blown. Suho wondered why his guardians seemed to take pride in making his job harder than it really should be.
Resigned that he had no other choice but to continue checking the remaining seven guardians he had yet to see (and deeply fearing what sort of trouble they were causing if Luhan looked that smug at keeping things from him), Suho focused on his current task at hand.
“So how are you spreading the Christmas spirit?” Suho wanted to know.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Luhan said. “I’m looking into the minds of all the children in the East Asia area to see what it is they want for Christmas and I’m sending subtle images-ideas, if you may-to their parents to make sure the kids get what they want.” Luhan grinned. “I’m playing Santa!”
With his fluff of light brown hair and similarly shaded wings, Suho thought he would fit the role of Rudolph better than Santa, only missing the additional bright red nose. He kept the thought to himself though, too impressed at Luhan’s deed to risk upsetting him. It was by far the sanest one so far, a far cry from what he’d previously seen. Luhan may still be closer to Chen on the mischief scale, but he was quickly climbing up Suho’s favourites list.
“I’m glad at least one of you has brains,” Suho said, patting Luhan on the shoulder.
Luhan’s eyes shot wide open. Suho feared he had broken the guardian’s concentration, but then he turned to Suho with his widest grin yet, rising quickly out of his sitting position.
“Xiumin wants me to join him in Macau. He’s trying to help kids do pirouettes and shit while ice skating and he thinks I should give the kids a boost.”
Suho’s eyes widened, realizing what that would lead to. “But-.”
“Maybe I should get Sehun to come too. His wind can help lift the kids naturally.”
Luhan had dived off the cloud, disappearing with the fall of gravity and leaving Suho in resigned defeat at what a field day the Macau media was going to have with children executing soaring pirouettes everywhere.
***
Beijing, China
The hospital was probably the least festive place to be during the Christmas holidays. Any child or adult would hate to have to spend their Christmas hooked up to a drip, too weak to get out of bed or forced to take horrid medication. Landing gently in the hospital lobby, Suho looked around him, pleasantly surprised to see that the occupants, both the residents and staff, seemed amazingly cheerful. Maybe Luhan wasn’t the only guardian who could do his job well.
The children’s ward was predictably the liveliest corner of the entire hospital, children wandering around in wheelchairs and crutches, pulling along poles of IVs, bandages and casts wrapped around limbs and heads, giggling and laughing despite whatever illness they suffered. It was in the large playroom by the nurse’s quarters that Suho saw silver wings reflecting sunlight into rainbows onto the walls.
He sat on Lay’s left where the guardian was preoccupied with having a pretend tea party with a girl of about five. The girl looked up at Suho, head tilting inquiringly at the new addition to their little gathering and glancing at Lay as if to silently
“Xiao Yi, this is Suho. He’s a friend of mine,” Lay introduced, barely even glancing at Suho’s direction.
She nodded, pouring imaginary tea into a tiny cup and saucer before handing it over to Suho. He accepted the drink and graciously drank from it, reveling in the bright, pleased smile the young girl gave him.
“She’s mute,” Lay explained, pretending to bite into the plastic cookies the girl was now handing out to the two guardians and her surrounding toys. “But she has really good sight.”
It wasn’t rare that young children were capable of seeing guardians in their true form, the purity of their innocence allowing sight of the ethereal beings. But children were often quickly discouraged from acknowledging what were deemed to be unreal, being scolded for having a far too wild imagination. Lay’s interaction with the child gave Suho a hint as to how Lay attempted to bring Christmas cheer to the place.
“I got the Department of Children’s Dreams and Fantasies to help me bring back these children’s dreams and fantasies,” Lay explained, requiring no push from Suho to elaborate. “It’s bad enough that they have to be sick during Christmas, but to not have good dreams is even worse.”
Lay kissed the top of Xiao Yi’s head, the girl too focused on serving her teddy bear to notice. He turned to Suho with a grave expression on his face.
“Can you believe that no one believes in unicorns anymore?”
Suho had to refrain from pointing out that even in their world, unicorns never existed, afraid what Lay was capable of if the determination in his eyes were any indication. He let the guardian ramble on about the preposterousness of the problem, nodding along as he heatedly argued his case, Suho sharing secretive smiles with little Xiao Yi as though they both knew they were merely entertaining Lay with the idea of prancing single-horned horses.
“I also had Luhan help me get people to donate more toys to the ward,” Lay was saying, pointing at the large open box brimming with an assortment of dolls, plushies and actions figures. “The children’s good mood has affected the other patients as well; everyone seems to be a lot happier now.”
For all of Lay’s quirks and odd beliefs, Suho couldn’t deny that Lay was doing a lot of people good, healing people beyond medical capabilities, putting a smile on their faces. The lack of time stopping, lake freezing and deafening outbursts of carols was infinitely better than anything he’d hoped for.
“Oh and Chen also dropped by a while ago to spread a little Christmas cheer himself,” Lay told him brightly.
Maybe Suho had thought too soon.
He watched Lay standing, giving Xiao Yi a small pat on the head and walk towards the entrance of the room where the light switches were placed and promptly turned the lights off, causing a few children to gasp and cry out in surprise and fear. He stayed where he sat, spreading his wings in preparation to mute the onslaught of ear-splitting singing of carols he knew would break through when Lay hit that switch.
The last thing he expected, however, was for the soft sound of bells to ring, distant at first but growing in intensity and volume before finally bursting into a raucous song. The children cheered, some even fluent enough to sing along to the tune of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. But what really got Suho was the display of sparkling lights dancing along the walls, taking shapes of mythical creatures and stars (he noticed a lot of unicorns), quite like a young child’s night light would accompany them in their sleep.
“Baekhyun helped out too?” Suho deduced.
Lay nodded, enthusiastically following a large shining unicorn along one wall. “Chen dragged him over with him.”
The children formed a jumbled train with Lay as their directing head, cackles of laughter and jubilant squeals erupting from each one. Suho saw no further reason for him to intrude upon their fun, relaxing his wings in preparation to fly off once more. He was stopped by a small hand grasping at the edge of his feathers, bright, wide eyes shining with the reflection of the lights.
“Yes, Xiao Yi?”
A peck on his cheek before the girl ran off to join the rest of the children and Lay. Suho had never been more grateful for being a guardian.
***
Hong Kong
Two days in and Suho had yet to find Kris. He knew his vice guardian was supposed to be in Hong Kong somewhere, but two days of sweeping the main city and its outskirt areas, weaving through the streets, houses and buildings and Suho saw no sign of him, no hint of his golden blonde hair or his thick brown eyebrows. It was too strange to ignore. How could a towering six-two guardian, with wings the span of half a blue whale, suddenly vanish out of sight?
The answer came on the third day (Suho’s last planned day to search for Kris before he would throw in the white towel and return to Seoul). And when it did, Suho half-hoped he had just given up after 48 hours, convincing himself that whatever it was Kris had chosen to do, he was responsible enough to not cause any harmful repercussions.
It wasn’t that he was causing harm per se, but Kris sure wasn’t spreading any joy.
“Oh my God,” Suho was barely able to breathe out, taking in the otherworldly sight before him. He didn’t think he had ever seen anything quite as mind-boggling as the guardian standing in front of him. And considering the years Suho has worked as a guardian-both on and off the field-that was saying something.
“It was Tao’s idea,” Kris sighed.
Suho marveled at just how soft Kris’ soft spot for that younger guardian was. If anyone else had even dared to think of suggesting this to Kris, they’d be looking at a permanent administrative post back at the academy and would never see the daylight of earth ever again. Suho was lucky to have some semblance of power over Kris.
“You hardly look jolly,” Suho pointed out.
Kris glared at him. “I’m in a huge red suit with boots the weight of tree trunks, my wings are stuffed in my back and I have a fake white beard that keeps making my face itch and sneeze. How the hell do you expect me to be jolly?”
“Well it’s not like you had to dress up as Santa and do this.” Suho said. “You could’ve done other things to spread the Christmas joy, like, I don’t know, helping out at the open kitchen or helping people set up their Christmas decorations. I mean, you’re the only other guardian who’s allowed to make themselves visible, so why not make use of that?”
Kris let out another sigh, gaze wandering off in the distance as he crossed his arm. “Yeah, but Tao said I should do this.”
There really wasn’t much room for argument, seeing as Kris was letting himself be miserable for Tao’s sake. It was sweet. Or perhaps just a tad masochistic.
“I gotta go now, Suho. My shift’s starting.”
Suho followed him out to the heart of Harbour City mall where a large Christmas theme had been set up, complete with the towering Christmas tree, imitation snow and a model sled pulled by Styrofoam reindeer statues. A throne-like chair sat to one end of the display, placed on a small stage with mini plastic Christmas trees bordering its sides. It was there that Kris sat, settling himself comfortably before the red rope was opened, leading to a line of awaiting young children and their parents.
He envisioned a litter of puppies, frightened and grouped together in their fear, trembling in terror at the man offering a handful of dog treats, torn between wanting to take the treat and staying a safe distance away, unsure whether the man really had sincere intentions or whether he was as terrifying as his outer demeanor. That was the exact scene that greeted him when the line of previously excited children saw the Santa they were about to meet, shake hands with and probably whose lap they planned to sit on and express their Christmas wish list.
“You should probably not glare so much,” Suho said to Kris from where he stood beside him, invisible to all else but Kris.
“I thought we talked about this Suho: I can’t change my eyebrows just as I can’t just take off my wings if they get too inconvenient,” Kris whispered, adjusting his beard and hat.
“Yes, but you’re scaring the kids,” he said, waving at the petrified crowd before them, all expression reflecting the same wide-eyed fear.
“Oh.”
Kris attempted to relax his face a little bit, the tension leaving his eyebrows significantly, though he now looked positively constipated. The cringe-like smile he was giving was not helping his case. One young girl promptly burst into tears.
Suho didn’t know how he didn’t manage to find Kris sooner. The group of terrified children had to have been a dead giveaway. No child should look so horrified in the presence of the most joyful character in Christmas.
One small boy stepped out of line though, climbing out of his stroller and toddling up to where Kris was seated, his parents unaware of his escape. He was clutching onto a red plush toy dragon roughly half his size, stumbling with the weight of the toy as he ducked under the red ropes, unnoticed. Suho and Kris watched the toddler amble onto the stage, stopping at Kris’ feet and extending his plush toy out to him.
“For gege,” the toddler gurgled, toothless smile breaking onto his face.
Kris glanced at Suho, unsure of what to do. Suho nodded enthusiastically, encouraging him to accept what he deemed was a peace offering.
“Um…thank you,” Kris said, taking the toy, staring at the black, beady eyes of the red dragon now in his hands.
“Pick up the kid, Kris,” Suho egged on.
Tentatively, Kris took the young boy in his arms and sat him down gently on his lap. His high laughter of glee was what finally caught his parents’ attention, the pair of mom and dad rushing forward as though fearing their son’s well-being. Seeing the boy giggling madly in joy in Kris’ arms (and Kris’ significantly softened expression, Suho noted with a smile), they paused to watch, achieving what they had wanted from the Santa visit.
“Mama, pretty angel~” the child cooed, stubby fingers pointing at Suho as his mom pulled him off of Kris, allowing other children who awaited their turn (encouraged by the young boy surviving the initially frightening Santa) to have their moment with Kris the Santa.
Suho waved at the boy, watching as he muttered a “bye bye” back. Kris sniggered and Suho knew he was never going to live down being called a pretty angel. In turn, he didn’t think anyone should miss out on seeing Kris dressed as Father Christmas, sneaking away a spare Polaroid of a family with Kris that one of the elf-dressed staffs had set aside.
“I’m heading back to Seoul, Kris, I trust you’ll take care of everything here in China?”
Kris nodded, arms and lap full of too many ecstatic children to give any other answer.
“Be nice and…smile.”
Kris proceeded to grimace. Suho knew a lost battle when he saw one and chose to let it go.
***
Seoul, South Korea
Kai had been surprisingly easy to find. And at the most unexpected place.
“What are you doing at the post office?” Suho asked.
The guardian looked up from the pile of letters he was sorting through and Suho was surprised to see the young man smiling brightly despite seeming to drown in the middle of envelopes and packages. The only times he’d seen Kai as happy would be in various states of nudity so to see him grinning quite merrily (no, he highly doubted it was merely Christmas that got Kai so happy) while very much fully clothed made him suspect malign things.
“I’m sorting out these letters,” Kai said, smiling.
Suho approached him cautiously, expecting some sort of explosion to take place and Kai to victoriously declare Suho had fallen for his façade. Much to Suho’s astonishment, Kai was doing exactly what he claimed to be doing: sorting mail.
“And why are you sorting out these letters?’ Suho wanted to know, deathly fearing the answer.
“The post office gets really busy during Christmas, you know, Christmas cards, holiday greetings, gifts, family packages and stuff. I thought it’d be nice if I could help them deliver some of these things when office hours are up so the people don’t have much of a workload. I can teleport these letters with me and have three times as many mail delivered in one day,” Kai explained. “Post office workers should be able to enjoy their holidays as well.”
Xiumin freezing Macau’s waterway, Tao stopping time on Nanjing Street, Chen scaring the crap out of people in their own homes and even Santa Kris had rendered much less shock out of Suho. Kai becoming incredibly thoughtful in the span of less than week almost made Suho’s brain short-circuit. His frozen stance, staring wide-eyed in utter disbelief at a whistling Kai who continued to pick through the pile of mail demonstrated a mere tip of the iceberg of how bewildered he really was.
Kai finally realized that Suho hadn’t responded to him. “Hyung, are you OK?”
Suho shook his head, attempting to shake away the astonished trance he had fallen into. “Um…yeah, but…I never expected you to come up with an idea like this.”
Kai gasped, too dramatically in Suho’s opinion.”I’m offended! How could you have so little faith in me? Do you think my skills only lie in displaying my perfectly sculpted body?”
“It’s the only skill I’ve ever seen you demonstrate,” Suho pointed out.
“Well my muscles can serve a purpose grander than merely pleasing the eyes.”
“You don’t need muscles to teleport,” Suho said.
“I do to carry the letters!” Kai exclaimed indignantly, gesturing to the mountain upon mountain of mail before him.
Suho narrowed his eyes at Kai, the younger guardian blinking up at him, all signs of innocence very questionably faux. At times like these, he wished Luhan were present to pry into Kai’s mind and see behind the lie he was evidently putting up.
“Really, Kai?”
He liked to think Kai finally crumbled under his incessant stare when, really, Kai was just too horrible at keeping things discreet. “Alright, it was D.O’s idea.”
That made a lot more sense.
“He told me my idea was too inappropriate and told me to do this instead seeing as I can teleport and everything,” Kai said with a huff, causing a pile of letters to scatter.
“And what was your original idea?” Suho asked tentatively.
Kai’s face lit up with his usual mischievous grin. “I wanted to be the condom fairy.”
Suho was afraid to ask, but he thought it was better to know and be prepared in advanced in case Kai decided to go ahead with the plan for some other occasion. “And what is a condom fairy supposed to do?”
Kai stood up, letters falling off his lap, expression possibly ecstatic as he stretched his arms and wings out; the hours of sitting and sifting through mail no doubt cramping up his joints. “Well, you know how Christmas is supposed to be a holy holiday, being the birth of Christ and everything and its sacred and supposedly pure? So I thought, what if certain people decided to taint that purity? What if some people got up to some really kinky things during Christmas? We wouldn’t want that to ruin the purity of Christmas, right?”
Suho would’ve pointed out to Kai that he would probably be the one person capable of tainting Christmas more than anybody else, but decided it was better to let Kai ramble on.
“And that’s when I came up with a plan!” Kai said, eyes positively sparkling. “I would confiscate all the sex toys people had, all the kinky things they had in store in exchange for a packet of condoms! I mean, what better thing to do than promote safe sex for the holidays?”
Suho had never been more grateful for D.O’s existence. The mere thought of people’s private items mysteriously disappearing and condoms taking their place would no doubt sprout some sort of internal fear of a new type of presumed sexual crime. That was the last thing people needed during their Christmas holidays.
“And if you were wondering what I’d do with the confiscated toys, well let’s just say I know a collector who’s willing to hang onto them until Valentine’s Day,” Kai said, eyebrows wiggling. “After I pick out some for myself, of course.”
D.O deserved some sort of grand award. Or an enhancement of his power or position. Or maybe buying him dinner could be a start.
Kai let out an exasperated sigh, shoulders slumping and settling in the midst of the sea of letters once more. “But alas,” he said, making Suho frown at the use of the word. “D.O thought it better that I contributed this way instead. Luhan will be so disappointed.”
Suho chose to ignore the revelation that Luhan was the mentioned collector, not wanting to traumatize his mind with images. “I’m glad you went with D.O’s idea. It’s a good idea,” he said.
Kai scoffed. “Of course it’s a good idea; D.O came up with it.”
Suho wondered what he was doing wrong that the guardians under his leadership seemed to follow orders from their colleagues rather than him. Then again, Kai had always been disbelievingly compliant with D.O’s wishes.
“I’ll leave you to your work, then,” Suho said, giving Kai a pat on his shoulder.
Kai waved him off, working diligently to sort out the mail before he started delivering, letting Suho leave. He chuckled to himself, shaking his head at Suho’s gullibility, the head guardian never realizing the small self-made stamp Kai put on the corner of every letter a package: Merry Christmas, from Sexy Angel Kai.
***
Tokyo, Japan
Sehun had never been much of a people person, choosing to do things on his own and often sitting in his own corner, brooding over his own thoughts. The only time Suho had ever seen any sort of spark light up in his expression was when Luhan was around, the young guardian immediately latching onto Luhan’s side like an extended limb. He had taken to clinging onto Suho whenever Luhan was absent, not unlike the time they had first met in his Wings Shop.
So it came as no surprise when he realized that Sehun had decided to venture to Japan on his own. He was rather astonished to find Sehun in the middle of the Shibuya intersection, surrounded by what was probably the majority population in Japan, the crowd almost seeming to drown him. Sehun’s attention was drawn to the large screen currently tuned into the local weather channel, expression almost bored.
“I thought you’d be in Macau with Luhan and Xiumin,” Suho said, landing on Sehun’s right.
“I was,” he said. “But helping them make kids fly-skate (“Letting them fly for a bit when they jump while ice skating,” Sehun explained) made me realize something.”
Suho raised his eyebrows. “What?”
Sehun turned to Suho, expression still vacant. “People hate wind.”
And so suddenly that Suho almost fell off-balance from avoiding Sehun’s spread wings, he took off, flying into the grey sky. Realizing that Sehun had provided no explanation and simply left, Suho flew off in pursuit, silently wishing his job had been made easier if he’d been assigned less troublesome guardians.
It took a while for Suho to locate Sehun once more, the dark clouds not allowing proper sight. The guardian was hovering before a particularly dark cloud, arms held out in front of him and seeming to guide the clouds and wind away.
“Sehun!” Suho called out.
Sehun glanced back, watching Suho rush up to him. “Oh hey, hyung.”
“What are you doing with this cloud?” he asked, frowning.
“Driving it away to the south,” he answered simply.
The frown remained. “Mind if I ask why?”
Sehun shrugged. “People don’t like wind during the winter because it causes horrible blizzards and snowstorms so I’m diverting them to the warmer climates where they won’t mind it as much.”
Suho had to credit Sehun on doing something as remarkable as moving large groups of clouds and changing the weather; it was by no means an easy feat. However, he didn’t think Sehun was wholly aware of the consequences his actions would bring.
“Sehun, do you realize this could cause hurricanes or thunderstorms in the tropical areas?” Suho informed. “I don’t think people there are too fond of hurricanes or thunderstorms either.”
Sehun paused, hovering in place, wings flapping occasionally to keep him airborne. Suho had long given up trying to remain afloat in midair, the effort too tiresome and too bothersome when he had the option of settling on a white cloud and allowing Sehun’s wind to follow the guardian.
“I didn’t think of that,” Sehun admitted glumly. It was the first time in a long while that Suho saw the same shy boy he had first met years ago.
“It’s OK,” Suho consoled. “I don’t think you’ve caused any damage so far.”
Sehun pouted, looking up at Suho helplessly. He briefly wondered whether Sehun had gotten along so well with Luhan and Xiumin on the simple commonality that the three were the best at pulling the big puppy eyes look.
“What am I supposed to do, hyung? I can’t think of anything else to do the whole spread Christmas joy thing.”
Suho let himself fall into the urge of patting Sehun’s hair. Maybe he and Luhan shared conditioners? Their hair always looked so fluffy.
“Well you can still drive away some wind and clouds that are causing people too much trouble, like if they’re endangering a whole town or if they’re causing trouble for airplanes,” Suho reasoned. “Just don’t send every single one away to the south.”
Sehun shrugged. “I guess I can do that.”
“Good,” Suho said, smiling, sneaking another pet of Sehun’s head. “I’m going to go check on the others. Let me know if you need any help, OK? Or let Luhan know, that might be faster.”
Sehun nodded, promising to let himself rely on his older peers if trouble came. Suho left the guardian to direct the clouds to their origin, happy to see a small smile appear on Sehun’s face.
***
Seoul, South Korea
Apparently D.O had decided to join forces with Baekhyun, and therefore, in extension, Chanyeol. South Korea was substantially a lot smaller than the China area, the trio deciding it would be much more effective to do their part in Christmas if they worked together. Suho highly approved of the collaboration. Well, if he was honest, he was just glad D.O was there to assure that Baekhyun and Chanyeol would not go to outlandish lengths in their duty. He shuddered to think what havoc they would have wreaked during his fly around China if D.O hadn’t been there to keep them in line.
“You look like an ice sculpture, hyung,” Baekhyun bluntly remarked when Suho had stepped in through the window of the home he and D.O were currently working on. “Quickly, shut the window! You’re letting the cold in!”
After flying for miles and through the current blizzard hitting South Korea, Suho thought he deserved a much warmer welcome than the one Baekhyun gave him. He half-regretted letting Sehun return the stormy clouds to where they resided, the snow storm apparently heading for Seoul and catching Suho on his way there. He wished he’d had the thought to at least have Sehun clear the skies for him.
Then again, maybe being caught in the middle of a blizzard wasn’t such a bad thing.
“Hyung, are you OK?” D.O asked, owl eyes wide, approaching Suho with concern. “Here, come closer to the fire.”
He let D.O guide him to the fireplace, settling down on the rug and expanding his wings, allowing the heat of the fire dry them.
“Where’s Chanyeol?” Suho asked, noticing the lack of a familiar, exuberant wide smile and ember red wings.
“He’s out,” Baekhyun said, heaving all his weight on the windowsill before finally managing to close it shut. “He says blizzards are fun.”
Suho learned long ago to not question Chanyeol’s quirks, trusting Baekhyun to pass judgment on whether Chanyeol posed any danger or not. As long as Baekhyun wasn’t panicking, then there was probably nothing to fret over, no matter how apprehensive Suho was allowing Chanyeol out free on his own.
“I think he just likes melting snow as they fall,” Baekhyun said, rolling his eyes.
Suho let out a relieved sigh as warmth began seeping into his wings and, ultimately, throughout his entire body. He gave his wings a shake before turning to D.O and Baekhyun who had become concentrated on the ceiling-high Christmas tree by the fireplace.
“I’m trimming the tree and Baekhyun is making fairy lights,” D.O explained, catching Suho’s gaze and answering his unasked question.
“It’s so much better than the crappy electrical lights they buy in stores,” Baekhyun said proudly, prodding the tree at random and leaving behind colourful arrays of small lights. “I also make the star, of course.” He pointed an index finger at the top of tree where a small glow began growing, eventually forming a rather large, star-like shape.
“We’re making sure everyone has a nice Christmas tree to put their presents under,” D.O said. “I’ve been giving some trees a little growth spurt, exchanging plastic ones for real trees, tidying up the rougher trees, Baekhyun’s in charge of lights and Chanyeol’s been lighting up the fireplaces.”
“Not a lot of Koreans have fireplaces though, so Chanyeol’s been sort of just following us around,” Baekhyun added, stepping back to admire his handiwork of the tree. “I think he was getting antsy not being able to let out all that pent up energy so we let him play outside for a bit.”
Leaving Chanyeol unsupervised didn’t seem like the best of plans to Suho. D.O noticed his all too apparent skepticism.
“Trust me, it’s much better that Chanyeol’s outside rather than inside,” he said.
Baekhyun scoffed. “You’re just bitter from the time he almost burned your tree down.”
“His fire was too big!” D.O exclaimed.
“Well your tree was too close to the fireplace,” Baekhyun retorted.
“It was twenty feet away!” D.O cried out.
“But the wreaths and mistletoe you keep putting up everywhere was well within burning distance of the fireplace!” Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “Seriously, what is with all the mistletoe?”
D.O became suspiciously quiet, face reddening despite the warmth seeping through the house. He chose to send one last glare at Baekhyun before turning away to inspect his tree once more. Suho could’ve sworn he heard D.O mutter, “It’s romantic.”
Before any other squabbles could take place, Chanyeol came rushing in through the door, stumbling inside and hastily shutting the door behind him. Suho was surprised they hadn’t awoken the occupants with all the noise they were making at that time of the night.
“Suho-hyung!” Chanyeol greeted, striding up to Suho and pulling him into a tight hug, eyes giddy with laughter. There was a twitch forming on his face, but Suho thought it might’ve been from the width of the toothy smile pulling all the muscles in his face.
“Hey Chanyeol,” Suho said, patting the man’s arm with his own, more composed smile.
Baekhyun watched the entire exchange with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow. Suho thought he was imagining things, but Chanyeol seemed determined to avoid Baekhyun’s gaze, moving to D.O’s side in pretense of admiring the decorated tree. D.O seemed to sense Baekhyun’s none too subtle hostility too, glancing between him and Chanyeol in confusion.
Baekhyun suddenly let out a loud groan. “Oh crap, Chanyeol, what did you do this time?”
Chanyeol looked up at the shining star, still refusing to look at Baekhyun. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything.” His answer would’ve been more convincing had it not been accompanied by incessant tapping of his feet and the twitch on his face becoming more apparent.
“Chanyeol.”
Baekhyun was hardly any taller than both Suho and D.O, but Chanyeol, quite obviously the single skyscraper in company, seemed to cower under Baekhyun’s gaze and warning voice.
“Chanyeol.”
Suho made a mental note never to get on Baekhyun’s bad side. Chanyeol, apparently, had learned that lesson long before Suho did if his submissive reaction was any indication. He finally met Baekhyun’s gaze, wincing from the intensity of his glare and hanging his head in defeat.
“I may have accidentally caused a major flood.”
Chanyeol had spoken softly, quite possibly not intending for his words to really be heard by the audience before him, but with his booming bass voice, it really took no effort to catch what he was saying. Baekhyun was the first to react, evidently more used to piecing together the puzzle that was Chanyeol’s words.
“Oh my God you melted all the snow, didn’t you, Chanyeol?!”
Chanyeol buried his face in his hands, crying out in anguish. “I’m so sorry! I got carried away playing with the snow and I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I saw all the snow gone!”
D.O rushed to the front door with Suho, pulling the door open. What used to be a road was now a steadily flowing stream of water, rushing past parked cars, drowning half their frames, washing the sidewalks clean of any frozen snow and taking them hostage as part of the forming river.
“That’s not good,” D.O said rather pointlessly.
One of these days, Suho would lose his mind from mere work stress and Angel Leeteuk would not be able to do anything about it. Would there ever come a day when Suho could do his work without having to do some sort of damage control?
Sensing that day would not come anytime soon, Suho gave a deep sigh and lifted both hands. The flow of water immediately ceased, merely making it look more like a dormant lake than a streaming river. He lifted his hand ever so slightly and the water’s surface seemed to be pulled upwards for one moment before little pinches of water began forming and droplets, defying all laws of gravity, began rising to the skies. They were lucky it was far past everyone’s bed time; the sight of water moving to ascend would probably not have gone down too well with people’s logic.
It was nearly daybreak when the water level had significantly lowered and D.O helped hasten the process by allowing excess water to flow into small, inconspicuous cracks in the street he had created with a stamp of his feet.
“I take back what I said,” D.O said when the roads merely gleamed with a thin ice coating now from the lingering water surrendering to the cold temperature. “Chanyeol is a hazard wherever he is.”
Chanyeol’s head was still hung. “I said I was sorry.”
Baekhyun plucked a feather out of D.O’s wings out of spite (the guardian yelping in pain) before attempting to console a very somber Chanyeol. D.O rubbed his sore wings and glared at Baekhyun.
“Byun Baekhyun is pure evil,” D.O muttered sulkily.
“Maybe,” Suho said with a shrug. “But without him, no one would be able to keep Chanyeol in check.”
Seeing Chanyeol cheer up considerably with a few words and a rub to his back from Baekhyun proved just that. Suho and D.O shared a relieved smile, staring at one another for longer than they should before their eyes were drawn to the hanging ornament on the door frame. The mistletoe seemed to twinkle at the blushes adorning both their faces as they quickly looked away.
***
“Merry Christmas!”
Tinkles of glass resounded in the main hall of the academy, the guardians present drinking their glasses clean in celebration. Space was constricted with the number of guardians gathering under the one roof, their array of wings (long, short, wide, thick, thin)-even tucked in-made it even harder to maneuver around. There were stories shared, laughter exchanged, drinks refilled as guardians of all duties and origins mingled together.
Suho was glad to be liberated from having to watch over his own group, knowing they would be on their best behaviour under the eyes of the academy’s senior board. Or at least attempt to do so, sighing when he saw Chanyeol accidentally cause an entire decorated wall to suddenly burst into flames. Suho reacted almost on autopilot, gathering water in his fingers and putting out the fire, Xiumin quick to freeze them and create a now sparkling ice wall. Baekhyun was predictably there to pull Chanyeol away from any potential hazards.
Lay was in deep conversation with Angel Yesung, the head of the Department of Children’s Fantasies and Dreams, the two seemingly very much immersed in a very serious discussion. Chen was close by, creating static electricity over an unsuspecting Yesung’s head and causing his hair to rise upright, chuckling silently to himself at the sight. Kris was right beside him to whack his head and cause Chen to pout at having been disrupted his fun time. Tao had dragged Kris away to look at the gigantic Christmas tree on display before Chen could retaliate.
D.O seemed rather anxious, standing by the tree, visibly itching to neaten its branches or carry out some sort of other act to perfect the tree, yet knowing full well that doing so would offend one of his mentors, Angel Ryeowook. Kai was in a heated argument nearby with Angel Siwon on why he couldn’t possibly strip to his bare feet and become the tree’s shining star instead. Luhan joined the debate, immediately taking Kai’s side, Sehun hovering nearby looking utterly bored.
Regardless, it was still a far better cry than all the chaos Suho’s angels had caused on earth.
A ringing sound drew everyone’s attention, conversations and debates ceasing as they all turned to Angel Leeteuk at the center of the hall, hands raised for attention.
“Thank you all for attending our annual Christmas party,” he said, smile never faltering from his face. “It has been quite the hectic year, the apocalypse scare surely doubling our work at calming people on earth. But this year, I’d like to especially extend my congratulations to Angel Suho and his team of guardians who have successfully brought much more than just Christmas cheer to the people of East Asia.”
Suho walked to Leeteuk’s side to a polite burst of applause, the loudest coming from his own group of guardians. He pretended to not hear Kai’s wolf-whistle or Chanyeol’s scream of, “Go Suho-hyung!”
“Groups of other regions would do well in following the example Angel Suho and his angels have set,” Angel Leeteuk said.
“Thank you, Angel Leeteuk,” he graciously said. “It was a tough task, but if it wasn’t for my team, it would never have been achieved.”
Another round of applause.
“As a reward, I have decided to free you and your angels of duty for the remainder of the year,” Angel Leeteuk announced.
Suho’s face lit up, the shouts of joy and whoops of delight quite obviously coming from the eleven guardians under his wing reflecting the elation Suho felt; being freed of duty meant being able to roam earth and the heavens without the responsibility of making sure humans weren’t in trouble nor ensuring the heavens were kept in order. It was practically a holiday.
“We’re still in charge of Valentine’s Day though, right?”
Angel Leeteuk nodded. “Yes, Valentine’s Day will still be part of your responsiblity.”
Kai and Luhan effectively high-fived.
“For Easter, however, we have a new addition this year,” Angel Leeteuk said, his eyes sparkling with an unsaid secret, wings spreading suddenly, causing those around him to stumble back for space. “Angels, meet our new Easter bunnies.”
At the folding of Angel Leeteuk’s wings, six figures appeared, looking nothing remotely like rabbits, the only thing differing one blonde head from another the splatter of colour on their clothes and the fact that one person had a black face mask on.
Suho thought it was a good time to start praying for the earth’s well-being.
***
This idea wouldn’t leave me until I started writing it. And it still kept bugging me until I finally finished. I don’t do very well at crack fics, but you can’t blame a girl for trying. For those who have read Guard Our Wings and requested a sequel story of what they would do when deployed for work, I hope this meets your expectation. For those who have never read Guard Our Wings, I hope this makes sense somehow. I tried putting sufficient explanation of a few things, but I didn’t want to do too much background description and lose the point of the story.
Suho smiles for comments :)
P.S: I have never been to any of the countries mentioned in this fic (I don’t think a transit at Narita airport counts), so if there are any inaccuracies regarding landmark (and perhaps weather conditions), please feel free to let me know (it won’t change the story; but I’ll definitely store it for future reference).
Author : miangel
Pairing(s) : Suho-centric with hints of Kris/Tao, Lay/Chen, Xiumin/Luhan/Sehun, Suho/D.O, Kai/D.O, Chanyeol/Baekhyun.
Genre : guardian angel AU, a sequel of some sort to my SNCJ Reverse Big Bang entry, Guard Our Wings (some references are made to things occurring in that fic, so it is advisable to read, but this story will still make sense if you decide not to)
Rating : PG-13
Warnings : brief mentions of sex toys
Word count : ~10,000 words
Summary : They’d been put in charge of Christmas. Each angel was expected to contribute in letting people of the earth feel the Christmas spirit. Suho was deeply worried. And he had every right to be.
A/N: A little Christmas fic to celebrate the holidays. Also, the title follows the format of Friends episode titles, just fyi. Enjoy! :)
***
Spread a little Christmas cheer, he’d been told. Let people feel some of that holiday spirit.
There were some things Suho thought should never have been within the responsibilities of being a guardian and making sure people of the world were rejoicing in the merry that is Christmas was one of them. But the orders had been clear, Angel Leeteuk’s wishes were words of law no matter how he would’ve hoped otherwise.
It wasn’t that Suho was against the idea. Far from it, he was all for making people happy, putting smiles on their faces during the one time of the year when everybody had a legitimate reason to fall into their childish whims once again. If he had enough power to supply the entire world with eternal joy, he’d do so without a second thought. The only problem were the eleven other winged people sitting in the circle they had formed, all of whom were staring at Suho as though he’d declared his impending death (though he thought they’d probably look immensely happier if it had been his death he was announcing).
“What?”
Jongdae had always been one to break silences.
“You want us to do what?”
And there was Baekhyun following in.
Cue the barrage of complaints.
“But hyung.”
“That’ll be so much work.”
“I’m allergic to trees.”
“Ew…there’ll be so many kids.”
“What if I catch a cold?”
“Don’t we have worker’s rights or something? I demand my vacation rights!”
“Guardians don’t have a union, moron.”
“Urgh.”
Suho flicked a finger and all eleven guardians were simultaneously drenched in a sudden rush of rain water. Where and how the water came, nobody knew, the clouds above white and fluffy and the sun innocently beating down upon them. It made them suddenly fear Suho’s capabilities. Regardless, it served its purpose: they all shut up.
“I understand this is sudden and I understand that Christmas is barely a week away, but Leeteuk wants this done immediately,” Suho said.
“Why can’t you just say no?” Chen asked, shaking his arms and wings around to dry them, only to effectively further drench the people around him. Lay gave a soft sigh while Kai merely seemed gleeful for an excuse to get rid of his wet clothes.
“Leeteuk is my supervisor and it is an order,” Suho promptly answered.
Sehun sniggered, muttering, “Pushover.” He currently had a warm breeze summoned to dry himself, Luhan and Tao clinging to either sides of him, attempting to benefit from the wind too.
Suho ignored him, silently wondering when Sehun had transformed from the shy, insecure young boy to someone with so much snark and disrespect. Maybe Luhan had not been as good of an influence as Suho had initially thought.
“I don’t care how you do this, but I will be checking up on each and every one of you until Christmas Eve, so I expect the best efforts and the most joyous Christmas East Asia has ever seen!” Suho gave them all a briefly bright, beaming smile. He then turned very sober. “Anyone who fails to do otherwise will have to answer to my vice.”
Nine pairs of eyes slowly diverted to Kris, the tall guardian looking none too pleased that his hair was matted and his clothes were ruined, the glare he was sending Suho worthy of a thousand suns, though Suho barely flinched. All nine guardians swallowed deeply, turning away quickly. Tao was the only guardian who didn’t seem perturbed by Kris’ evidently murderous mood, trying to tug Kris into Sehun’s warm, drying wind.
Suho was pleased to see no further objections arise at the threat. “Well, good luck to all of you and…Merry Christmas!”
Suho disappeared with a rush of wind, his wings pushing him off the ground and into the clear skies. They all watched him leave with scowls and resigned expressions on their face, muttering among themselves on what they could do to possibly fulfill this duty.
“Does this mean we get a Christmas bonus?”
Chen was promptly ignored.
***
Shanghai, China
Suho froze in the middle of what was supposed to be Shanghai’s central, busiest, most-crowded, main street, Nanjing Road. No, there was still probably half the Chinese population there (a few spatters of foreigners too), dressed to the nines, travelling mostly in groups and pairs, heavily laden with shopping bags and boxes of what he deemed were Christmas gifts. There was only one problem: they were all, much like Suho’s initial reaction, frozen. Unmoving. Immobile. Motionless. Still.
As far as Suho knew, Madame Tussaud’s had not expanded its exhibition to depict an entire street of life-like statues. No, there was definitely another explanation for the sudden stationary condition of everyone within a couple of miles’ radius. And Suho knew exactly what it was. More specifically, who.
(After quite a painstaking search) He found him in one of the city’s largest department stores, in one specific store boasting lavish branded items and exclusivity and milling with considerably fewer people than the outside streets had. It was hard to miss the only moving being amidst the sea of what seemed to be mannequins. The wings were also a dead giveaway.
“Tao.”
The guardian looked up from where he had been pouring over what seemed to be a sale sign, face lighting up upon recognizing Suho. “Oh hey hyung!” He promptly returned to the task at hand.
“What in the world are you doing?” Suho demanded.
“Hm?” Tao looked up again, an innocently confused expression on his face. Suho must’ve been crazy for ever thinking the kid could be harmful. “What do you mean what am I doing?” Then again, his naïve indifference proved to be quite a strain on patience at the worst of times.
Suho waved his arms around at the frozen people. “Why in the world did you stop time?”
Tao blinked. “Oh,” he put a finger to his lips, looking around him at the unmoving people, seeming to finally realize how bizarre the scene he’d created was. “Well, I was doing what you told us to do: spreading some Christmas cheer.”
Suho narrowed his eyes, dodging his way through women and bags and displays to where Tao stood. “And what exactly did you have planned?”
A smile broke over Tao’s face as he stepped aside, gesturing proudly at what he’d been working on. Suho frowned, unsure of what Tao was so delightedly showing him. He glanced up at Tao, hoping for some sort of hint towards what he was supposed to be looking at, but Tao merely pointed insistently at the sign declaring the 80% sale for the items on display.
Wait.
“Tao, that’s stealing!”
Tao look scandalized. “No, it’s not!” he countered, arguing his case before Suho could scold him anymore. “Look, every person should have the right to buy nice, branded clothes for Christmas, OK? Not just rich snobs swimming in multiple full bank accounts. Plus, I’m going to personally make sure everyone looks stunning for the holidays.”
Suho narrowed his eyes, fearing the answer to the question he was about to voice. “And how do you plan on doing that?”
“I’m going to mix and match their clothes myself, of course,” Tao said, rolling his eyes. “Thus, the whole freezing time thing! So I can check whatever people are buying and whether it’s the right purchase for them.”
Suho let out a deep sigh. “Tao, this is abuse of power, not to mention the repercussions! Have you ever thought about how much money the store would lose if you turned their previously 30% discounts to 80%? Wouldn’t the owners get suspicious?”
“Already ahead of you on that one,” Tao declared brightly. “I asked Luhan-ge to meddle with the management’s mind a bit, so there won’t be a problem. They can stand to lose a few thousand dollars anyway. The more purchases, the more income, it’ll up their profits anyway. I counted.”
Suho didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled that Tao had thought things so thoroughly.
“Oh, and I’m also giving away these special shopping vouchers for people who are less fortunate,” he held up a thick wad of money-like paper, grinning. “Help me hand these out while you’re off checking on everyone else?”
He really didn’t have much of a choice or another say in the issue, Tao promptly handing over half of the vouchers to Suho and gliding off to another sale sign, working on rewriting the number written. He had to give Tao credit though: his penmanship was almost faultless. And the idea wasn’t all that bad. In essence, he was giving to people in need and taking from those who were privileged. Like a modern day Robin Hood. A modern day Robin Hood squealing over branded, animal-print underwear.
Suho decided it was time for him to take his leave.
***
Macau
If Suho thought Tao stopping time in downtown Shanghai had been a real eye-opener, he had been gravely mistaken. Seeing the lakes and rivers of Macau all iced over, frozen solid, small ships stranded without any possibility of trying to pull themselves out and yacht owners at a loss as to how to save their precious boats really made one stop to think whether things were really happening. The sight really took one’s breath away; Suho was quite literally finding himself suffocating on lack of air.
“Like what I did?”
Turning to the guardian appearing beside him, Suho gaped, unable to form words coherent enough to express the turmoil going inside his head, from fear of what Angel Leeteuk would do if he ever found to foolproof plans on how to make sure Angel Leeteuk never found out about this.
“It was pretty tiring, took real concentration, especially that Pearl River Delta, man that was one major power exertion, but hey, I did it! I made natural ice skating rinks for everyone in Macau.”
Suho spluttered, articulation still refusing to return. “What. How. Why.”
“Oh you mean why I thought up of this brilliant idea?” Xiumin asked. Suho would’ve substituted the word brilliant for are-you-out-of-your-mind if he’d been capable of speaking. Xiumin continued, undeterred. “Well, I know a lot of people vacation to Macau for the Christmas holidays, so I thought, hey, what could be more Christmassy than having a gigantic ice rink they can all play in without having to pay a single cent?”
Suho continued to open and close his mouth, uttering not a single sound.
Xiumin grinned, mistaking Suho’s silence for awe. “Like I said, brilliant, isn’t it?”
People were panicking, those previously on boats screaming for help to be brought back on land, some even precariously walking on the frozen water, testing its sturdiness in holding their weight. Suho had to at least commend Xiumin on ensuring he had frozen enough depth of the water to ensure none would suddenly crack and cave under the burden of people. There was nothing Christmassy about freezing to death in ice-cold waters. Or hypothermia, for that matter.
Suho watched a television news crew nearby reporting the bizarre event, catching phrases like ‘global warming’, ‘unknown causes’ and ‘scientists are confounded’. There’d be no way scientists could figure out guardian angels were behind the phenomenon.
“The best part’s about to come though,” Xiumin said, grin widening exponentially.
“What-.”
A small, glimmering white ball of ice cold, frozen water floated in front of Suho. It was peculiar and Suho had no clue what it was, dissolving upon his touch. By the time it melted in his hands and the realization hit him, others had fallen more rapidly in big groups and were slowly creating small piles of white on what had been a green, grassy ground. The news crew effectively went into a craze reporting the sudden weather anomaly.
“Ice skating and snow. It can’t get more Christmassy than this!” Xiumin looked positively delighted.
The people around them, however, seemed to have an adverse reaction to the falling snow.
“They don’t seem to be happy to see snow though,” Xiumin observed, watching a group of young people stare wide-eyed at each other, trembling in their estimations of the looming doomsday predicted.
“For good reason, Xiumin,” Suho finally managed to piece his mind together again, letting out a deep sigh. “It’s not supposed to snow in Macau. Like ever.”
Xiumin looked at Suho. “So?”
“So,” Suho said slowly, “what you just did is the equivalent of turning Antarctica into a beach resort.”
The news crew was having a field day with the day’s strange events, undecided on how to inform their viewers in reacting to the unnatural weather occurrence. Suho gave up any hope of Angel Leeteuk not noticing any oddities, knowing the news would spread around the world, and eventually to Angel Leeteuk’s ears, by the end of the day.
The guilty perpetrator seemed to be quite nonchalant, though. “Hey, it’s Christmas. Miracles happen,” Xiumin reasoned.
And seeing little kids fight off their parents’ warning holds and scolding to run gleefully onto the grass, catching the falling snow and attempting to initiate snow fights and create snow angels with the limited snow formed, Suho thought that maybe one miracle couldn’t hurt.
***
Taipei, Taiwan
Seeing whom he had deemed his sanest subordinate resort to creating something akin to global terror by making snow fall in a snow-free place made Suho fear what some of his less sane guardians were doing. Taipei seemed to be snow free and time seemed to flow as it should be, allowing Suho to breathe a small sigh of relief. A brief fly over the city and a general check of the entire country proved to Suho that nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Far from being consoled, an uneasy feeling was beginning to settle in Suho’s gut. The fact that he had yet to find Chen was also deeply troubling him.
A shrill scream coming from one of the many tall apartment buildings came almost as a relief.
An elderly lady stood, or, well, leaned heavily on her door frame, clutching at her chest as she tried to control her erratic heartbeat. Suho couldn’t understand why the lady seemed so genuinely terrified at entering what he supposed was her own apartment, feeling the Christmas carol resounding in the place to be quite festive. He wasn’t given much time to ponder though, another scream reaching his ears from a few buildings away, a middle-aged man this time, expression reflecting that of the elderly woman: shock and confused. Christmas carols were also playing in his apartment.
Suho began to think there was some sort of pattern he was missing.
It wasn’t until the sixth calling scream (a young woman who was convinced someone had broke into her home and was lurking somewhere, awaiting to pounce, Suho had to spend quite a while exerting his power to calm her) that he realized the bursts of Christmas carols were no mere coincidence. In fact, if his deductions were correct, they were the exact source of the problem. It had Chen’s name written all over it and the seventh victim (a disgruntled man returning from work) proved both his guesses true.
“The fuck is wrong with this thing? I turn my fucking light on and fucking Jingle Bells is playing? The fuck kind of prank is this?”
It was safe to say the man was not amused. But at the very least, Suho now knew what was causing the seemingly random outbursts of carols in people’s homes.
“Not the traditional Jingle Bells sort of guy, huh? I knew I should’ve stuck to Jingle Bell Rock.”
Suho almost let out his own inhuman shriek of surprise. But no, guardians did not shriek, so he settled for a stifled squeak of surprise though having no power over his madly flapping wings. Chen stared amusedly at Suho, trademark smirk on his face and Suho knew Chen’s sudden startling appearance had very much been intentional.
“What is with you and loud bursts of music?” Suho asked, trying to seem unperturbed but furtively attempting to calm his heart beat down.
“Oh come on! What’s Christmas without its carols?” Chen said, gesturing openly at the music still playing loudly in the upset man’s apartment despite the man’s attempt at destroying his light switch.
Suho took pity on the man and spread his wings wide, a silver glow shining from them briefly before the music died down and eventually stopped. The apartment owner looked around, confused as to how his apartment had returned to its original silence. Shaking his head, seeming to convince himself it was some sort of stupid prank (he really wasn’t too far from the truth), the man walked further into his apartment, grumbling about stupid holidays.
“Why’d you have to go and do that?” Chen whined.
Suho stared at him in disbelief. “Most people don’t appreciate coming into their home, turning on their lights and having random music playing at full blast.”
Chen gasped, looking for the world, scandalized. “It’s not just ‘random music’.” Suho chose to ignore the quotation marks he made and the roll of his eyes. “It’s Christmas carols, hyung! There aren’t any carolers in Taipei so I had to make sure people were feeling the Christmas joy somehow.”
Suho massaged the bridge of his nose. “How did you even-.”
“Oh that was easy!” Chen said brightly. “Watch.”
Chen dragged a reluctant Suho to the bedroom the apartment inhabitant was about to enter. He watched Chen place a finger mere inches away from the light switch, a small spark of electricity running between the finger and the switch. Predictably, when the man flipped the switch on, Jingle Bell Rock began playing at full volume.
“FOR THE LOVE OF-.”
Suho annulled Chen’s little trick once more, wings extending almost automatically and silvery glow released before the man could further curse his mouth off.
Chen rolled his eyes. “Seriously, hyung. Lighten up a bit. It’s only music.”
“Fine,” Suho gave in. “But at least turn it down a bit. Make it seem like a background sound or something so people will actually appreciate it.”
Chen narrowed his eyes in condescension at the man now flopped on his bed. “Tsk. Peasants. Don’t know how to appreciate good music.”
“Chen,” Suho said warningly.
He held his hands up in surrender.”Alright, alright, I’ll tone it down a bit.”
“Thank you,” Suho said, sighing in relief. He didn’t like the glint that had suddenly taken on in Chen’s eyes though. Nor the way he had started rubbing his hands together in some sort of anticipation.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a couple of apartment buildings that need to be brought joy to their world.”
Chen flew off with a hum of, “Falalalala lalalala.”
***
A cloud above the sea
Suho came across Luhan as he was returning to mainland China, sat atop a cloud hovering above the South China Sea, sitting cross-legged, eyes closed meditatively, a small smile twitching his lips. He sat next to the absent-mindedly humming guardian, careful not to disrupt the brown wings spread out on both his sides.
“Chen’s carols are catchy, aren’t they?” Luhan said as Suho shared his cloud, eyes still shut.
“Contagiously,” Suho muttered, fighting the incessant play of Jingle Bells in his head.
“D.O is growing mistletoe,” Luhan stated.
Suho didn’t know why that piece of information would be important but he feared the lightly teasing lilt Luhan’s voice had taken on. Choosing to ignore whatever Luhan was hinting at, he focused on the subtle implication behind what Luhan had just revealed.
“You know what everyone is doing,” Suho said.
“I do,” Luhan nodded.
“You can tell me if any of the other guardians are doing anything stupid,” he looked to Luhan with hope, the other guardian still serenely meditating.
“I could,” Luhan said.
“But…you’re not going to, are you?” Suho said dejectedly, shoulders slumping.
“Why would I take the fun out of having you find out for yourself?” Luhan’s smile was full blown. Suho wondered why his guardians seemed to take pride in making his job harder than it really should be.
Resigned that he had no other choice but to continue checking the remaining seven guardians he had yet to see (and deeply fearing what sort of trouble they were causing if Luhan looked that smug at keeping things from him), Suho focused on his current task at hand.
“So how are you spreading the Christmas spirit?” Suho wanted to know.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Luhan said. “I’m looking into the minds of all the children in the East Asia area to see what it is they want for Christmas and I’m sending subtle images-ideas, if you may-to their parents to make sure the kids get what they want.” Luhan grinned. “I’m playing Santa!”
With his fluff of light brown hair and similarly shaded wings, Suho thought he would fit the role of Rudolph better than Santa, only missing the additional bright red nose. He kept the thought to himself though, too impressed at Luhan’s deed to risk upsetting him. It was by far the sanest one so far, a far cry from what he’d previously seen. Luhan may still be closer to Chen on the mischief scale, but he was quickly climbing up Suho’s favourites list.
“I’m glad at least one of you has brains,” Suho said, patting Luhan on the shoulder.
Luhan’s eyes shot wide open. Suho feared he had broken the guardian’s concentration, but then he turned to Suho with his widest grin yet, rising quickly out of his sitting position.
“Xiumin wants me to join him in Macau. He’s trying to help kids do pirouettes and shit while ice skating and he thinks I should give the kids a boost.”
Suho’s eyes widened, realizing what that would lead to. “But-.”
“Maybe I should get Sehun to come too. His wind can help lift the kids naturally.”
Luhan had dived off the cloud, disappearing with the fall of gravity and leaving Suho in resigned defeat at what a field day the Macau media was going to have with children executing soaring pirouettes everywhere.
***
Beijing, China
The hospital was probably the least festive place to be during the Christmas holidays. Any child or adult would hate to have to spend their Christmas hooked up to a drip, too weak to get out of bed or forced to take horrid medication. Landing gently in the hospital lobby, Suho looked around him, pleasantly surprised to see that the occupants, both the residents and staff, seemed amazingly cheerful. Maybe Luhan wasn’t the only guardian who could do his job well.
The children’s ward was predictably the liveliest corner of the entire hospital, children wandering around in wheelchairs and crutches, pulling along poles of IVs, bandages and casts wrapped around limbs and heads, giggling and laughing despite whatever illness they suffered. It was in the large playroom by the nurse’s quarters that Suho saw silver wings reflecting sunlight into rainbows onto the walls.
He sat on Lay’s left where the guardian was preoccupied with having a pretend tea party with a girl of about five. The girl looked up at Suho, head tilting inquiringly at the new addition to their little gathering and glancing at Lay as if to silently
“Xiao Yi, this is Suho. He’s a friend of mine,” Lay introduced, barely even glancing at Suho’s direction.
She nodded, pouring imaginary tea into a tiny cup and saucer before handing it over to Suho. He accepted the drink and graciously drank from it, reveling in the bright, pleased smile the young girl gave him.
“She’s mute,” Lay explained, pretending to bite into the plastic cookies the girl was now handing out to the two guardians and her surrounding toys. “But she has really good sight.”
It wasn’t rare that young children were capable of seeing guardians in their true form, the purity of their innocence allowing sight of the ethereal beings. But children were often quickly discouraged from acknowledging what were deemed to be unreal, being scolded for having a far too wild imagination. Lay’s interaction with the child gave Suho a hint as to how Lay attempted to bring Christmas cheer to the place.
“I got the Department of Children’s Dreams and Fantasies to help me bring back these children’s dreams and fantasies,” Lay explained, requiring no push from Suho to elaborate. “It’s bad enough that they have to be sick during Christmas, but to not have good dreams is even worse.”
Lay kissed the top of Xiao Yi’s head, the girl too focused on serving her teddy bear to notice. He turned to Suho with a grave expression on his face.
“Can you believe that no one believes in unicorns anymore?”
Suho had to refrain from pointing out that even in their world, unicorns never existed, afraid what Lay was capable of if the determination in his eyes were any indication. He let the guardian ramble on about the preposterousness of the problem, nodding along as he heatedly argued his case, Suho sharing secretive smiles with little Xiao Yi as though they both knew they were merely entertaining Lay with the idea of prancing single-horned horses.
“I also had Luhan help me get people to donate more toys to the ward,” Lay was saying, pointing at the large open box brimming with an assortment of dolls, plushies and actions figures. “The children’s good mood has affected the other patients as well; everyone seems to be a lot happier now.”
For all of Lay’s quirks and odd beliefs, Suho couldn’t deny that Lay was doing a lot of people good, healing people beyond medical capabilities, putting a smile on their faces. The lack of time stopping, lake freezing and deafening outbursts of carols was infinitely better than anything he’d hoped for.
“Oh and Chen also dropped by a while ago to spread a little Christmas cheer himself,” Lay told him brightly.
Maybe Suho had thought too soon.
He watched Lay standing, giving Xiao Yi a small pat on the head and walk towards the entrance of the room where the light switches were placed and promptly turned the lights off, causing a few children to gasp and cry out in surprise and fear. He stayed where he sat, spreading his wings in preparation to mute the onslaught of ear-splitting singing of carols he knew would break through when Lay hit that switch.
The last thing he expected, however, was for the soft sound of bells to ring, distant at first but growing in intensity and volume before finally bursting into a raucous song. The children cheered, some even fluent enough to sing along to the tune of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. But what really got Suho was the display of sparkling lights dancing along the walls, taking shapes of mythical creatures and stars (he noticed a lot of unicorns), quite like a young child’s night light would accompany them in their sleep.
“Baekhyun helped out too?” Suho deduced.
Lay nodded, enthusiastically following a large shining unicorn along one wall. “Chen dragged him over with him.”
The children formed a jumbled train with Lay as their directing head, cackles of laughter and jubilant squeals erupting from each one. Suho saw no further reason for him to intrude upon their fun, relaxing his wings in preparation to fly off once more. He was stopped by a small hand grasping at the edge of his feathers, bright, wide eyes shining with the reflection of the lights.
“Yes, Xiao Yi?”
A peck on his cheek before the girl ran off to join the rest of the children and Lay. Suho had never been more grateful for being a guardian.
***
Hong Kong
Two days in and Suho had yet to find Kris. He knew his vice guardian was supposed to be in Hong Kong somewhere, but two days of sweeping the main city and its outskirt areas, weaving through the streets, houses and buildings and Suho saw no sign of him, no hint of his golden blonde hair or his thick brown eyebrows. It was too strange to ignore. How could a towering six-two guardian, with wings the span of half a blue whale, suddenly vanish out of sight?
The answer came on the third day (Suho’s last planned day to search for Kris before he would throw in the white towel and return to Seoul). And when it did, Suho half-hoped he had just given up after 48 hours, convincing himself that whatever it was Kris had chosen to do, he was responsible enough to not cause any harmful repercussions.
It wasn’t that he was causing harm per se, but Kris sure wasn’t spreading any joy.
“Oh my God,” Suho was barely able to breathe out, taking in the otherworldly sight before him. He didn’t think he had ever seen anything quite as mind-boggling as the guardian standing in front of him. And considering the years Suho has worked as a guardian-both on and off the field-that was saying something.
“It was Tao’s idea,” Kris sighed.
Suho marveled at just how soft Kris’ soft spot for that younger guardian was. If anyone else had even dared to think of suggesting this to Kris, they’d be looking at a permanent administrative post back at the academy and would never see the daylight of earth ever again. Suho was lucky to have some semblance of power over Kris.
“You hardly look jolly,” Suho pointed out.
Kris glared at him. “I’m in a huge red suit with boots the weight of tree trunks, my wings are stuffed in my back and I have a fake white beard that keeps making my face itch and sneeze. How the hell do you expect me to be jolly?”
“Well it’s not like you had to dress up as Santa and do this.” Suho said. “You could’ve done other things to spread the Christmas joy, like, I don’t know, helping out at the open kitchen or helping people set up their Christmas decorations. I mean, you’re the only other guardian who’s allowed to make themselves visible, so why not make use of that?”
Kris let out another sigh, gaze wandering off in the distance as he crossed his arm. “Yeah, but Tao said I should do this.”
There really wasn’t much room for argument, seeing as Kris was letting himself be miserable for Tao’s sake. It was sweet. Or perhaps just a tad masochistic.
“I gotta go now, Suho. My shift’s starting.”
Suho followed him out to the heart of Harbour City mall where a large Christmas theme had been set up, complete with the towering Christmas tree, imitation snow and a model sled pulled by Styrofoam reindeer statues. A throne-like chair sat to one end of the display, placed on a small stage with mini plastic Christmas trees bordering its sides. It was there that Kris sat, settling himself comfortably before the red rope was opened, leading to a line of awaiting young children and their parents.
He envisioned a litter of puppies, frightened and grouped together in their fear, trembling in terror at the man offering a handful of dog treats, torn between wanting to take the treat and staying a safe distance away, unsure whether the man really had sincere intentions or whether he was as terrifying as his outer demeanor. That was the exact scene that greeted him when the line of previously excited children saw the Santa they were about to meet, shake hands with and probably whose lap they planned to sit on and express their Christmas wish list.
“You should probably not glare so much,” Suho said to Kris from where he stood beside him, invisible to all else but Kris.
“I thought we talked about this Suho: I can’t change my eyebrows just as I can’t just take off my wings if they get too inconvenient,” Kris whispered, adjusting his beard and hat.
“Yes, but you’re scaring the kids,” he said, waving at the petrified crowd before them, all expression reflecting the same wide-eyed fear.
“Oh.”
Kris attempted to relax his face a little bit, the tension leaving his eyebrows significantly, though he now looked positively constipated. The cringe-like smile he was giving was not helping his case. One young girl promptly burst into tears.
Suho didn’t know how he didn’t manage to find Kris sooner. The group of terrified children had to have been a dead giveaway. No child should look so horrified in the presence of the most joyful character in Christmas.
One small boy stepped out of line though, climbing out of his stroller and toddling up to where Kris was seated, his parents unaware of his escape. He was clutching onto a red plush toy dragon roughly half his size, stumbling with the weight of the toy as he ducked under the red ropes, unnoticed. Suho and Kris watched the toddler amble onto the stage, stopping at Kris’ feet and extending his plush toy out to him.
“For gege,” the toddler gurgled, toothless smile breaking onto his face.
Kris glanced at Suho, unsure of what to do. Suho nodded enthusiastically, encouraging him to accept what he deemed was a peace offering.
“Um…thank you,” Kris said, taking the toy, staring at the black, beady eyes of the red dragon now in his hands.
“Pick up the kid, Kris,” Suho egged on.
Tentatively, Kris took the young boy in his arms and sat him down gently on his lap. His high laughter of glee was what finally caught his parents’ attention, the pair of mom and dad rushing forward as though fearing their son’s well-being. Seeing the boy giggling madly in joy in Kris’ arms (and Kris’ significantly softened expression, Suho noted with a smile), they paused to watch, achieving what they had wanted from the Santa visit.
“Mama, pretty angel~” the child cooed, stubby fingers pointing at Suho as his mom pulled him off of Kris, allowing other children who awaited their turn (encouraged by the young boy surviving the initially frightening Santa) to have their moment with Kris the Santa.
Suho waved at the boy, watching as he muttered a “bye bye” back. Kris sniggered and Suho knew he was never going to live down being called a pretty angel. In turn, he didn’t think anyone should miss out on seeing Kris dressed as Father Christmas, sneaking away a spare Polaroid of a family with Kris that one of the elf-dressed staffs had set aside.
“I’m heading back to Seoul, Kris, I trust you’ll take care of everything here in China?”
Kris nodded, arms and lap full of too many ecstatic children to give any other answer.
“Be nice and…smile.”
Kris proceeded to grimace. Suho knew a lost battle when he saw one and chose to let it go.
***
Seoul, South Korea
Kai had been surprisingly easy to find. And at the most unexpected place.
“What are you doing at the post office?” Suho asked.
The guardian looked up from the pile of letters he was sorting through and Suho was surprised to see the young man smiling brightly despite seeming to drown in the middle of envelopes and packages. The only times he’d seen Kai as happy would be in various states of nudity so to see him grinning quite merrily (no, he highly doubted it was merely Christmas that got Kai so happy) while very much fully clothed made him suspect malign things.
“I’m sorting out these letters,” Kai said, smiling.
Suho approached him cautiously, expecting some sort of explosion to take place and Kai to victoriously declare Suho had fallen for his façade. Much to Suho’s astonishment, Kai was doing exactly what he claimed to be doing: sorting mail.
“And why are you sorting out these letters?’ Suho wanted to know, deathly fearing the answer.
“The post office gets really busy during Christmas, you know, Christmas cards, holiday greetings, gifts, family packages and stuff. I thought it’d be nice if I could help them deliver some of these things when office hours are up so the people don’t have much of a workload. I can teleport these letters with me and have three times as many mail delivered in one day,” Kai explained. “Post office workers should be able to enjoy their holidays as well.”
Xiumin freezing Macau’s waterway, Tao stopping time on Nanjing Street, Chen scaring the crap out of people in their own homes and even Santa Kris had rendered much less shock out of Suho. Kai becoming incredibly thoughtful in the span of less than week almost made Suho’s brain short-circuit. His frozen stance, staring wide-eyed in utter disbelief at a whistling Kai who continued to pick through the pile of mail demonstrated a mere tip of the iceberg of how bewildered he really was.
Kai finally realized that Suho hadn’t responded to him. “Hyung, are you OK?”
Suho shook his head, attempting to shake away the astonished trance he had fallen into. “Um…yeah, but…I never expected you to come up with an idea like this.”
Kai gasped, too dramatically in Suho’s opinion.”I’m offended! How could you have so little faith in me? Do you think my skills only lie in displaying my perfectly sculpted body?”
“It’s the only skill I’ve ever seen you demonstrate,” Suho pointed out.
“Well my muscles can serve a purpose grander than merely pleasing the eyes.”
“You don’t need muscles to teleport,” Suho said.
“I do to carry the letters!” Kai exclaimed indignantly, gesturing to the mountain upon mountain of mail before him.
Suho narrowed his eyes at Kai, the younger guardian blinking up at him, all signs of innocence very questionably faux. At times like these, he wished Luhan were present to pry into Kai’s mind and see behind the lie he was evidently putting up.
“Really, Kai?”
He liked to think Kai finally crumbled under his incessant stare when, really, Kai was just too horrible at keeping things discreet. “Alright, it was D.O’s idea.”
That made a lot more sense.
“He told me my idea was too inappropriate and told me to do this instead seeing as I can teleport and everything,” Kai said with a huff, causing a pile of letters to scatter.
“And what was your original idea?” Suho asked tentatively.
Kai’s face lit up with his usual mischievous grin. “I wanted to be the condom fairy.”
Suho was afraid to ask, but he thought it was better to know and be prepared in advanced in case Kai decided to go ahead with the plan for some other occasion. “And what is a condom fairy supposed to do?”
Kai stood up, letters falling off his lap, expression possibly ecstatic as he stretched his arms and wings out; the hours of sitting and sifting through mail no doubt cramping up his joints. “Well, you know how Christmas is supposed to be a holy holiday, being the birth of Christ and everything and its sacred and supposedly pure? So I thought, what if certain people decided to taint that purity? What if some people got up to some really kinky things during Christmas? We wouldn’t want that to ruin the purity of Christmas, right?”
Suho would’ve pointed out to Kai that he would probably be the one person capable of tainting Christmas more than anybody else, but decided it was better to let Kai ramble on.
“And that’s when I came up with a plan!” Kai said, eyes positively sparkling. “I would confiscate all the sex toys people had, all the kinky things they had in store in exchange for a packet of condoms! I mean, what better thing to do than promote safe sex for the holidays?”
Suho had never been more grateful for D.O’s existence. The mere thought of people’s private items mysteriously disappearing and condoms taking their place would no doubt sprout some sort of internal fear of a new type of presumed sexual crime. That was the last thing people needed during their Christmas holidays.
“And if you were wondering what I’d do with the confiscated toys, well let’s just say I know a collector who’s willing to hang onto them until Valentine’s Day,” Kai said, eyebrows wiggling. “After I pick out some for myself, of course.”
D.O deserved some sort of grand award. Or an enhancement of his power or position. Or maybe buying him dinner could be a start.
Kai let out an exasperated sigh, shoulders slumping and settling in the midst of the sea of letters once more. “But alas,” he said, making Suho frown at the use of the word. “D.O thought it better that I contributed this way instead. Luhan will be so disappointed.”
Suho chose to ignore the revelation that Luhan was the mentioned collector, not wanting to traumatize his mind with images. “I’m glad you went with D.O’s idea. It’s a good idea,” he said.
Kai scoffed. “Of course it’s a good idea; D.O came up with it.”
Suho wondered what he was doing wrong that the guardians under his leadership seemed to follow orders from their colleagues rather than him. Then again, Kai had always been disbelievingly compliant with D.O’s wishes.
“I’ll leave you to your work, then,” Suho said, giving Kai a pat on his shoulder.
Kai waved him off, working diligently to sort out the mail before he started delivering, letting Suho leave. He chuckled to himself, shaking his head at Suho’s gullibility, the head guardian never realizing the small self-made stamp Kai put on the corner of every letter a package: Merry Christmas, from Sexy Angel Kai.
***
Tokyo, Japan
Sehun had never been much of a people person, choosing to do things on his own and often sitting in his own corner, brooding over his own thoughts. The only time Suho had ever seen any sort of spark light up in his expression was when Luhan was around, the young guardian immediately latching onto Luhan’s side like an extended limb. He had taken to clinging onto Suho whenever Luhan was absent, not unlike the time they had first met in his Wings Shop.
So it came as no surprise when he realized that Sehun had decided to venture to Japan on his own. He was rather astonished to find Sehun in the middle of the Shibuya intersection, surrounded by what was probably the majority population in Japan, the crowd almost seeming to drown him. Sehun’s attention was drawn to the large screen currently tuned into the local weather channel, expression almost bored.
“I thought you’d be in Macau with Luhan and Xiumin,” Suho said, landing on Sehun’s right.
“I was,” he said. “But helping them make kids fly-skate (“Letting them fly for a bit when they jump while ice skating,” Sehun explained) made me realize something.”
Suho raised his eyebrows. “What?”
Sehun turned to Suho, expression still vacant. “People hate wind.”
And so suddenly that Suho almost fell off-balance from avoiding Sehun’s spread wings, he took off, flying into the grey sky. Realizing that Sehun had provided no explanation and simply left, Suho flew off in pursuit, silently wishing his job had been made easier if he’d been assigned less troublesome guardians.
It took a while for Suho to locate Sehun once more, the dark clouds not allowing proper sight. The guardian was hovering before a particularly dark cloud, arms held out in front of him and seeming to guide the clouds and wind away.
“Sehun!” Suho called out.
Sehun glanced back, watching Suho rush up to him. “Oh hey, hyung.”
“What are you doing with this cloud?” he asked, frowning.
“Driving it away to the south,” he answered simply.
The frown remained. “Mind if I ask why?”
Sehun shrugged. “People don’t like wind during the winter because it causes horrible blizzards and snowstorms so I’m diverting them to the warmer climates where they won’t mind it as much.”
Suho had to credit Sehun on doing something as remarkable as moving large groups of clouds and changing the weather; it was by no means an easy feat. However, he didn’t think Sehun was wholly aware of the consequences his actions would bring.
“Sehun, do you realize this could cause hurricanes or thunderstorms in the tropical areas?” Suho informed. “I don’t think people there are too fond of hurricanes or thunderstorms either.”
Sehun paused, hovering in place, wings flapping occasionally to keep him airborne. Suho had long given up trying to remain afloat in midair, the effort too tiresome and too bothersome when he had the option of settling on a white cloud and allowing Sehun’s wind to follow the guardian.
“I didn’t think of that,” Sehun admitted glumly. It was the first time in a long while that Suho saw the same shy boy he had first met years ago.
“It’s OK,” Suho consoled. “I don’t think you’ve caused any damage so far.”
Sehun pouted, looking up at Suho helplessly. He briefly wondered whether Sehun had gotten along so well with Luhan and Xiumin on the simple commonality that the three were the best at pulling the big puppy eyes look.
“What am I supposed to do, hyung? I can’t think of anything else to do the whole spread Christmas joy thing.”
Suho let himself fall into the urge of patting Sehun’s hair. Maybe he and Luhan shared conditioners? Their hair always looked so fluffy.
“Well you can still drive away some wind and clouds that are causing people too much trouble, like if they’re endangering a whole town or if they’re causing trouble for airplanes,” Suho reasoned. “Just don’t send every single one away to the south.”
Sehun shrugged. “I guess I can do that.”
“Good,” Suho said, smiling, sneaking another pet of Sehun’s head. “I’m going to go check on the others. Let me know if you need any help, OK? Or let Luhan know, that might be faster.”
Sehun nodded, promising to let himself rely on his older peers if trouble came. Suho left the guardian to direct the clouds to their origin, happy to see a small smile appear on Sehun’s face.
***
Seoul, South Korea
Apparently D.O had decided to join forces with Baekhyun, and therefore, in extension, Chanyeol. South Korea was substantially a lot smaller than the China area, the trio deciding it would be much more effective to do their part in Christmas if they worked together. Suho highly approved of the collaboration. Well, if he was honest, he was just glad D.O was there to assure that Baekhyun and Chanyeol would not go to outlandish lengths in their duty. He shuddered to think what havoc they would have wreaked during his fly around China if D.O hadn’t been there to keep them in line.
“You look like an ice sculpture, hyung,” Baekhyun bluntly remarked when Suho had stepped in through the window of the home he and D.O were currently working on. “Quickly, shut the window! You’re letting the cold in!”
After flying for miles and through the current blizzard hitting South Korea, Suho thought he deserved a much warmer welcome than the one Baekhyun gave him. He half-regretted letting Sehun return the stormy clouds to where they resided, the snow storm apparently heading for Seoul and catching Suho on his way there. He wished he’d had the thought to at least have Sehun clear the skies for him.
Then again, maybe being caught in the middle of a blizzard wasn’t such a bad thing.
“Hyung, are you OK?” D.O asked, owl eyes wide, approaching Suho with concern. “Here, come closer to the fire.”
He let D.O guide him to the fireplace, settling down on the rug and expanding his wings, allowing the heat of the fire dry them.
“Where’s Chanyeol?” Suho asked, noticing the lack of a familiar, exuberant wide smile and ember red wings.
“He’s out,” Baekhyun said, heaving all his weight on the windowsill before finally managing to close it shut. “He says blizzards are fun.”
Suho learned long ago to not question Chanyeol’s quirks, trusting Baekhyun to pass judgment on whether Chanyeol posed any danger or not. As long as Baekhyun wasn’t panicking, then there was probably nothing to fret over, no matter how apprehensive Suho was allowing Chanyeol out free on his own.
“I think he just likes melting snow as they fall,” Baekhyun said, rolling his eyes.
Suho let out a relieved sigh as warmth began seeping into his wings and, ultimately, throughout his entire body. He gave his wings a shake before turning to D.O and Baekhyun who had become concentrated on the ceiling-high Christmas tree by the fireplace.
“I’m trimming the tree and Baekhyun is making fairy lights,” D.O explained, catching Suho’s gaze and answering his unasked question.
“It’s so much better than the crappy electrical lights they buy in stores,” Baekhyun said proudly, prodding the tree at random and leaving behind colourful arrays of small lights. “I also make the star, of course.” He pointed an index finger at the top of tree where a small glow began growing, eventually forming a rather large, star-like shape.
“We’re making sure everyone has a nice Christmas tree to put their presents under,” D.O said. “I’ve been giving some trees a little growth spurt, exchanging plastic ones for real trees, tidying up the rougher trees, Baekhyun’s in charge of lights and Chanyeol’s been lighting up the fireplaces.”
“Not a lot of Koreans have fireplaces though, so Chanyeol’s been sort of just following us around,” Baekhyun added, stepping back to admire his handiwork of the tree. “I think he was getting antsy not being able to let out all that pent up energy so we let him play outside for a bit.”
Leaving Chanyeol unsupervised didn’t seem like the best of plans to Suho. D.O noticed his all too apparent skepticism.
“Trust me, it’s much better that Chanyeol’s outside rather than inside,” he said.
Baekhyun scoffed. “You’re just bitter from the time he almost burned your tree down.”
“His fire was too big!” D.O exclaimed.
“Well your tree was too close to the fireplace,” Baekhyun retorted.
“It was twenty feet away!” D.O cried out.
“But the wreaths and mistletoe you keep putting up everywhere was well within burning distance of the fireplace!” Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “Seriously, what is with all the mistletoe?”
D.O became suspiciously quiet, face reddening despite the warmth seeping through the house. He chose to send one last glare at Baekhyun before turning away to inspect his tree once more. Suho could’ve sworn he heard D.O mutter, “It’s romantic.”
Before any other squabbles could take place, Chanyeol came rushing in through the door, stumbling inside and hastily shutting the door behind him. Suho was surprised they hadn’t awoken the occupants with all the noise they were making at that time of the night.
“Suho-hyung!” Chanyeol greeted, striding up to Suho and pulling him into a tight hug, eyes giddy with laughter. There was a twitch forming on his face, but Suho thought it might’ve been from the width of the toothy smile pulling all the muscles in his face.
“Hey Chanyeol,” Suho said, patting the man’s arm with his own, more composed smile.
Baekhyun watched the entire exchange with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow. Suho thought he was imagining things, but Chanyeol seemed determined to avoid Baekhyun’s gaze, moving to D.O’s side in pretense of admiring the decorated tree. D.O seemed to sense Baekhyun’s none too subtle hostility too, glancing between him and Chanyeol in confusion.
Baekhyun suddenly let out a loud groan. “Oh crap, Chanyeol, what did you do this time?”
Chanyeol looked up at the shining star, still refusing to look at Baekhyun. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything.” His answer would’ve been more convincing had it not been accompanied by incessant tapping of his feet and the twitch on his face becoming more apparent.
“Chanyeol.”
Baekhyun was hardly any taller than both Suho and D.O, but Chanyeol, quite obviously the single skyscraper in company, seemed to cower under Baekhyun’s gaze and warning voice.
“Chanyeol.”
Suho made a mental note never to get on Baekhyun’s bad side. Chanyeol, apparently, had learned that lesson long before Suho did if his submissive reaction was any indication. He finally met Baekhyun’s gaze, wincing from the intensity of his glare and hanging his head in defeat.
“I may have accidentally caused a major flood.”
Chanyeol had spoken softly, quite possibly not intending for his words to really be heard by the audience before him, but with his booming bass voice, it really took no effort to catch what he was saying. Baekhyun was the first to react, evidently more used to piecing together the puzzle that was Chanyeol’s words.
“Oh my God you melted all the snow, didn’t you, Chanyeol?!”
Chanyeol buried his face in his hands, crying out in anguish. “I’m so sorry! I got carried away playing with the snow and I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I saw all the snow gone!”
D.O rushed to the front door with Suho, pulling the door open. What used to be a road was now a steadily flowing stream of water, rushing past parked cars, drowning half their frames, washing the sidewalks clean of any frozen snow and taking them hostage as part of the forming river.
“That’s not good,” D.O said rather pointlessly.
One of these days, Suho would lose his mind from mere work stress and Angel Leeteuk would not be able to do anything about it. Would there ever come a day when Suho could do his work without having to do some sort of damage control?
Sensing that day would not come anytime soon, Suho gave a deep sigh and lifted both hands. The flow of water immediately ceased, merely making it look more like a dormant lake than a streaming river. He lifted his hand ever so slightly and the water’s surface seemed to be pulled upwards for one moment before little pinches of water began forming and droplets, defying all laws of gravity, began rising to the skies. They were lucky it was far past everyone’s bed time; the sight of water moving to ascend would probably not have gone down too well with people’s logic.
It was nearly daybreak when the water level had significantly lowered and D.O helped hasten the process by allowing excess water to flow into small, inconspicuous cracks in the street he had created with a stamp of his feet.
“I take back what I said,” D.O said when the roads merely gleamed with a thin ice coating now from the lingering water surrendering to the cold temperature. “Chanyeol is a hazard wherever he is.”
Chanyeol’s head was still hung. “I said I was sorry.”
Baekhyun plucked a feather out of D.O’s wings out of spite (the guardian yelping in pain) before attempting to console a very somber Chanyeol. D.O rubbed his sore wings and glared at Baekhyun.
“Byun Baekhyun is pure evil,” D.O muttered sulkily.
“Maybe,” Suho said with a shrug. “But without him, no one would be able to keep Chanyeol in check.”
Seeing Chanyeol cheer up considerably with a few words and a rub to his back from Baekhyun proved just that. Suho and D.O shared a relieved smile, staring at one another for longer than they should before their eyes were drawn to the hanging ornament on the door frame. The mistletoe seemed to twinkle at the blushes adorning both their faces as they quickly looked away.
***
“Merry Christmas!”
Tinkles of glass resounded in the main hall of the academy, the guardians present drinking their glasses clean in celebration. Space was constricted with the number of guardians gathering under the one roof, their array of wings (long, short, wide, thick, thin)-even tucked in-made it even harder to maneuver around. There were stories shared, laughter exchanged, drinks refilled as guardians of all duties and origins mingled together.
Suho was glad to be liberated from having to watch over his own group, knowing they would be on their best behaviour under the eyes of the academy’s senior board. Or at least attempt to do so, sighing when he saw Chanyeol accidentally cause an entire decorated wall to suddenly burst into flames. Suho reacted almost on autopilot, gathering water in his fingers and putting out the fire, Xiumin quick to freeze them and create a now sparkling ice wall. Baekhyun was predictably there to pull Chanyeol away from any potential hazards.
Lay was in deep conversation with Angel Yesung, the head of the Department of Children’s Fantasies and Dreams, the two seemingly very much immersed in a very serious discussion. Chen was close by, creating static electricity over an unsuspecting Yesung’s head and causing his hair to rise upright, chuckling silently to himself at the sight. Kris was right beside him to whack his head and cause Chen to pout at having been disrupted his fun time. Tao had dragged Kris away to look at the gigantic Christmas tree on display before Chen could retaliate.
D.O seemed rather anxious, standing by the tree, visibly itching to neaten its branches or carry out some sort of other act to perfect the tree, yet knowing full well that doing so would offend one of his mentors, Angel Ryeowook. Kai was in a heated argument nearby with Angel Siwon on why he couldn’t possibly strip to his bare feet and become the tree’s shining star instead. Luhan joined the debate, immediately taking Kai’s side, Sehun hovering nearby looking utterly bored.
Regardless, it was still a far better cry than all the chaos Suho’s angels had caused on earth.
A ringing sound drew everyone’s attention, conversations and debates ceasing as they all turned to Angel Leeteuk at the center of the hall, hands raised for attention.
“Thank you all for attending our annual Christmas party,” he said, smile never faltering from his face. “It has been quite the hectic year, the apocalypse scare surely doubling our work at calming people on earth. But this year, I’d like to especially extend my congratulations to Angel Suho and his team of guardians who have successfully brought much more than just Christmas cheer to the people of East Asia.”
Suho walked to Leeteuk’s side to a polite burst of applause, the loudest coming from his own group of guardians. He pretended to not hear Kai’s wolf-whistle or Chanyeol’s scream of, “Go Suho-hyung!”
“Groups of other regions would do well in following the example Angel Suho and his angels have set,” Angel Leeteuk said.
“Thank you, Angel Leeteuk,” he graciously said. “It was a tough task, but if it wasn’t for my team, it would never have been achieved.”
Another round of applause.
“As a reward, I have decided to free you and your angels of duty for the remainder of the year,” Angel Leeteuk announced.
Suho’s face lit up, the shouts of joy and whoops of delight quite obviously coming from the eleven guardians under his wing reflecting the elation Suho felt; being freed of duty meant being able to roam earth and the heavens without the responsibility of making sure humans weren’t in trouble nor ensuring the heavens were kept in order. It was practically a holiday.
“We’re still in charge of Valentine’s Day though, right?”
Angel Leeteuk nodded. “Yes, Valentine’s Day will still be part of your responsiblity.”
Kai and Luhan effectively high-fived.
“For Easter, however, we have a new addition this year,” Angel Leeteuk said, his eyes sparkling with an unsaid secret, wings spreading suddenly, causing those around him to stumble back for space. “Angels, meet our new Easter bunnies.”
At the folding of Angel Leeteuk’s wings, six figures appeared, looking nothing remotely like rabbits, the only thing differing one blonde head from another the splatter of colour on their clothes and the fact that one person had a black face mask on.
Suho thought it was a good time to start praying for the earth’s well-being.
***
This idea wouldn’t leave me until I started writing it. And it still kept bugging me until I finally finished. I don’t do very well at crack fics, but you can’t blame a girl for trying. For those who have read Guard Our Wings and requested a sequel story of what they would do when deployed for work, I hope this meets your expectation. For those who have never read Guard Our Wings, I hope this makes sense somehow. I tried putting sufficient explanation of a few things, but I didn’t want to do too much background description and lose the point of the story.
Suho smiles for comments :)
P.S: I have never been to any of the countries mentioned in this fic (I don’t think a transit at Narita airport counts), so if there are any inaccuracies regarding landmark (and perhaps weather conditions), please feel free to let me know (it won’t change the story; but I’ll definitely store it for future reference).