angel space
Title: angel space
Pairing: gen / monsta x
Rating: g
Genre: fantasy / humor
Word Count: 2.2k
Warnings: n/a
a/n: originally posted on bluemoon monsta x fic challenge.
Summary: newbie changkyun joins the ranks of good deeds, co., a premier company for guardian angels.
Heaven wasn't as hot as what Changkyun had imagined it to be.
Sure, he figured people might have been a bit off with their descriptions of it. So maybe the ground didn’t look like a giant fluffy cloud, nor did he hear any harps playing anywhere, nor did he suddenly have flawless skin and relaxing in a gorgeous, top-of-the-line massage chair while being served all-you-can-eat ox bone soup.
What he wasn’t prepared for was to be given a job in heaven.
A job. As if living for 20 stressful years with society-mandated responsibility wasn’t enough serving time already.
So instead of a set of beautiful pearly gates in front of him, he saw a large wooden door, complete with a brass knocker and a welcome mat neatly positioned below. On the door was a nameplate engraved with “Good Deeds, Co.” in ornate lettering.
Changkyun squinted back down at the letter he was holding.
Dear Im Changkyun,
Congratulations! You have been accepted into Good Deeds, Co., the premier workplace of the most prestigious of the guardian angels. As an outstanding former human, your interview has been waived upon good merit. You can begin your work immediately.
Please knock on our door as soon as you finish reading this letter.
Best regards,
Angel Management
“So I’m an angel now?” Changkyun mumbled to nobody in particular. He then whipped his head around but alas, no wings.
He walked up two steps and rapped on the door.
Greeting him was an impossibly happy angel with the brightest wings imaginable. He shielded his eyes from the glare when the angel nearly propelled himself towards him in excitement.
“Yes, yes, hello to you! Welcome to Good Deeds, Co. where we reward good deeds of all kinds, big and small. No good deed goes unnoticed! My name is Minhyuk, pleased to meet you. Now how may I be of service?”
“Well, I…” Changkyun trailed off, eyeing his acceptance letter for further instructions that obviously weren’t there.
“Ah, Minhyuk! That must be the new hire. Come in, Changkyun!” A voice from within the office sang out.
Minhyuk’s eyes immediately narrowed. “Hmm,” he hummed and cocked his head, before giving way for Changkyun to enter.
The office was almost anti-climactic in its similarities with an ordinary office on Earth, almost boringly so. The only major differences were the wings on people’s backs, and instead of laptops on their desks, they had holographic orbs with imagery moving about.
Just then, an angel with the most beautiful set of wings Changkyun had ever seen walked towards him with open arms. Changkyun stood enthralled.
“Welcome, Changkyun, welcome! My name is Wonho, your resident guardian angel of emotional support, as well as the assistant manager of this wonderful establishment,” Wonho paused to beam at the ceiling, momentarily lost in thought.
“It’s a pleasure for you to join us! Let me introduce you to our company. Attention, everyone! EVERYONE. That includes you, Hyungwon and Jooheon.”
An angel with obnoxiously long wings took out his headphones and yawned. He then nudged his deskmate, who reluctantly swiveled his chair around in the slowest motion possible.
Wonho waited patiently, and then continued.
“The new guardian angel who I had mentioned earlier has arrived. Please give a warm welcome to Changkyun!”
He was met with a scattered mumbling of hellos across the room. Satisfied, he turned to Changkyun.
“Let me take you around! First and foremost, we have our manager who is, ah…” he glanced around the room. “…in the restroom. I’ll introduce you to him shortly. Moving along.”
Wonho ushered Changkyun to the receptionist desk, where Minhyuk had taken back his seat.
“Here we are! You’ve met Minhyuk already,” Minhyuk gave Changkyun another blinding smile before shoving his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “He is our happiness expert, as well as our concierge. He’s quite the charmer! I’m sure you’re going to love him.”
Changkyun quickly ducked his head from a projectile that suddenly zoomed by and conked Minhyuk in the head, starting a string of loud retorts from the charmer.
“Now, now, Kihyun,” a new voice threatened quietly. Changkyun turned to the source of the sound. Coming out of the restroom was a towering angel with the largest wingspan in the room.
Changkyun followed the big angel’s glare to a much smaller angel sitting nearby and looking completely unfazed at his fingernails.
Wonho cleared his throat.
“Well then, it looks like I can introduce you to the manager now. Changkyun, meet Shownu! He is our angel of all-around support.”
“Mostly physical,” Shownu shrugged as he made his way across the room and shook hands.
“Oh now, don’t you listen to him. Shownu’s the humble type. He’s much more than physical.”
Shownu lightly bowed in a flush and muttered something like an apology.
“And here’s Kihyun! Our angel of goodwill.”
Kihyun stood up, extending his small yet intricately designed wings to their fullest and bowed deeply. When he straightened himself he continued to keep his wings on full display. Changkyun hovered behind Wonho.
“Thank you, Kihyun. Changkyun, your new desk-mate will be more than willing to help you-”
Kihyun made a high-pitched meep. Changkyun widened his eyes and looked at Wonho, who pretended like nothing had happened.
“-get accustomed to our work-life as the esteemed guardian angels that we are. Kihyun, I trust you to take it from here!”
Wonho waved and promptly disappeared into his private office.
Changkyun sat down at the empty desk and nervously played with his hands.
“So, newbie,” Kihyun swiveled his chair around and perched his arms behind his head. “Heard you got in on a merit-based rec. What are your qualifications?”
“Um, I really don’t know, I just got here-”
“Excellent! I bet you’re perfect for this job!”
“Well, I don’t think I am…” Changkyun trailed off.
“Anyway, here’s the app to learn about using the Net,” Kihyun slid a smaller floating orb towards Changkyun. “I’ve turned it on to beginner level settings for you but feel free to ask if you need any help.” Kihyun popped his collar. “They call me the Whiz here.”
Changkyun heard a snort coming from the back of the office.
Kihyun stiffened, then leaned in while motioning for Changkyun to get closer.
“Psst. What say we take a break?”
Changkyun scratched his head. “Err, I’m not sure if I should…”
Kihyun waved him aside. “Nonsense. As your mentor I implore that you take part in this activity. For team-building.”
“So, Changkyun,” Kihyun declared louder than was necessary, “let me bring you up to date on guardian business. Please bring your trainer orb and follow me.”
He quickly glanced back and then got up, motioning for Changkyun. Once the duo got to the break room, Kihyun shut the door and closed the blinds.
“Now,” Kihyun clapped his hands in glee. “Let’s talk office politics.”
Gingerly holding the orb, Changkyun prodded, “Shouldn’t we focus on my training? I don’t even know how to get my wings yet…”
“All in due time, newbie. Now here’s the rundown,” Kihyun clasped his hands together. “Now, as you may have noticed, there is a constant war occurring in our midst. A war… of commissions.”
Changkyun slowly sat down.
“I assume you know the gist of angel-work. Humans do something nice, and we reward. How and when we reward is all based on a set of algorithms that you’ll become familiar with later,” Kihyun waved off.
“Anyway, we receive commissions based on the value of our rewards. And to promote friendly competition, our office has been divided into two teams. One consists of Minhyuk and Jooheon, and the other of me, Hyungwon… and now you.” Changkyun was sure he saw a glint of evil in Kihyun’s eyes.
“Now, how about a friendly little prank?”
And so that’s how Changkyun almost got kicked out of his first job in heaven on the first day.
An annoyingly audible computer virus, three false fire alarms, and a permanently tampered-with coffee machine later (for which Shownu was deducting from Kihyun’s salary), it was time for the all-wings weekly meeting.
“Please settle down so we can start. Wonho, where did you place my notes? And Changkyun, there’s a seat next to Jooheon, by the way,” Shownu remarked without even looking up from his orb.
With a heavy sigh, Changkyun sat down. Luckily, Kihyun’s plans had been successful enough not to raise any suspicion on Changkyun, himself. But it was still safe to be wary.
“Weren’t we supposed to have lunch at this meeting?” Hyungwon walked into the conference room last.
“Yeah, you bring your own, cherub,” Jooheon wagged his bagged lunch.
“I told you not to call me a cherub,” Hyungwon jerked back the seat on the other side of Changkyun and flopped down. “We really need an HR department in here,” he grumbled.
“Okay, let’s begin,” Shownu started up a holographic display of the planet on the meeting table.
“Now we have exceeded our rewards quota for the past week, which is not ideal. Some of you,” Shownu eyed Jooheon, “have been over-zealous with your work. As a reminder, not all deeds necessarily need an external return. I suggest you fine-tune your settings to skip over the deeds that can suffice with internal satisfaction.”
Hyungwon leaned over to Changkyun and whispered, “Over-achievers getting in trouble is my favorite thing. By the way, welcome to our team,” he winked.
“Our second topic of concern is over-hoarding good deeds for one or two larger rewards in the future. I’d like to mention that over-riding the Small Gifts algorithm is not advisable for a blessed life. To those in concern, please stay back after this meeting adjourns.”
This time, Changkyun was nudged on the other side. “Oh, someone’s in trou~ble~ now,” Jooheon smirked, nodding his head at Hyungwon. Unsure of how to respond, Changkyun shrugged. Jooheon offered him a baby carrot.
“In other news, note that continued destruction of office supplies correlates with vandalism. The employee will continue to have salary cuts to replace said supplies-”
“But do you have any proof that it was me?” Kihyun interjected.
“I didn’t say it was you until you just implied it was.”
Kihyun slumped down in his seat.
“Now, if there’s nothing else…”
“Ah,” Wonho spoke up. “I think this is a good time as ever for this announcement. Beginning next week, Shownu and I have decided to do away with rewarding individual commissions.”
“No!”
“This is an outrage…”
“I didn’t sign up for this socialist dictatorship when I died!”
Wonho held up his hands. “We felt that fostering inner competition did less to improve our quality of angel-work and more to divide us. Instead, we will be pooling our results together and dividing equally amongst the seven of us.”
“Did you say seven?” Minhyuk chirped up.
“That is correct! In doing so, we hope to transform Good Deeds, Co. into a flat level company where everyone from the manager to the working angel can team together for one cause,” Wonho ended with a triumphant smile, but the rest of the room didn’t look too excited.
“And if it doesn’t work,” Kihyun articulated, “can we go back to the old way?”
“Yes, of course! We will run for a trial month, and then decide from there.”
“Interesting…”
“I’m still not sold, but whatever. At least I can expect more peace around here now.”
“Alright,” Shownu nodded, “No more questions? Meeting adjourned!”
By the end of the day, Changkyun had become more familiar with using the Net. He also learned that wings are something that must be earned, but Wonho proclaimed that he’d earn his in no time. The actual angel-work part would come in later, after his training period ended.
There were still a bunch of concerns he had about heaven, mostly on how much it resembled Earth, what dangers to avoid, whether he can get killed again, the basic stuff. And out of those there was one immediate concern that nagged him the most:
He didn’t have a home here.
As if on cue, Jooheon wandered over to his desk.
“Yo, newbie, I heard you skipped over the initiation process and came directly to work?”
“I guess so… since I don’t even know what an initiation process is.”
“It’s where they help you get settled in. You know, a job, a place to say, the whole intro pamphlet. Anyway, my roommate just left and I’d rather not be paying double the rent forever. So if you’re interested, care to room with me?”
“YES,” Changkyun practically yelled out of relief. “I mean, yes, of course, thank you!”
Jooheon chuckled. “Awesome!”
Shownu came out of his office. “Who can join me at the Celestial Grill tonight? It’s been a while since I’ve treated you guys.”
Whoops and hollers filled the air. Hyungwon and Kihyun high-fived each other and Minhyuk gave a standing ovation. Wonho leaned against the wall, nodding fondly.
“Changkyun, do you want to grab dinner with us?”
Changkyun exhaled a breath he had been holding the whole day.
Maybe this whole life in heaven thing might not be a bad idea, after all.