[Fic] Mischievous Souls [Chapter One]
Title: Mischievous Souls
Pairing: Not really a pairing.
Rating: G
Genre: Fluffy humour? :3
Notes: Inspired by this.
Disclaimer: My apartment is not haunted by them, much as I would really probably enjoy it.
Summary: Shim Changmin is a poltergeist. One of the most mischievous around. And he enjoys causing trouble for anyone that crosses his path. After spending 70 or so years haunting around the world, he's finally tracked down by Jung Yunho, an otherworld official who has been charged with the task of making Changmin finally cross over. The only problem with that... is that Changmin really, really doesn't feel like going. How many ways can a poltergeist turn an angel's life into a living hell?
It was only ever little things, the inhabitants of the house came to realise. Missing keys. Doors locking themselves. Things falling off shelves they'd sat on for months without incident. Things that could be brushed off. The soft sound of footsteps? The ghost of a chuckle from the other room? Merely their imagination playing tricks on them in the large, old house situated at the end of the row.
Former occupants always second-guessed themselves about it. Rarely were the strange incidents mentioned to the new buyers, and nobody ever seemed to hold them in high enough importance in their minds to mention them to the neighbours. Had they, they might have felt a little less alone in the paranoia that had person after person moving into and out of the house.
To say it was haunted would be overstepping. But it definitely was very much occupied by someone other than the buyers.
The young man was floating, his body arranged as if it were sitting on the ottoman, though no part of him touched it. Long legs were stretched out, crossed at the exposed ankles, and he stretched his arms above his head, letting out a small yawn. Though his eyes seemed to, only momentarily, hold a hint of sleepiness, he was far from it; after all, Shim Changmin never slept. He merely went into a strange little hibernation state. A state he'd just come out of, only to realise that once more the occupants of the house had changed. The expression on his face curious, he hopped in the air, and his feet settled on the air an inch above the floorboards.
He bounced on air toward the kitchen, one hand slipping into his pocket as the other touched the bowler-esque hat on his head, making sure it was still there. As he slipped through the open doorway, his eyes alighted on the happy new owners of the house. His house. Head tilting curiously, he took a few steps closer and leaned in to inspect the woman. If she had any awareness of the fact that the young man was looking at her, face only inches from her own, she didn't show it. Neither she nor the man who was busily unpacking dishes and setting them into the sink seemed to notice him. And Changmin, a man that measured over six feet tall without the inch of air beneath his toes, and who was dressed in an impossibly odd fashion, was very hard to miss.
Brushing his hands over the sleeves of his fuzzy-ish jacket, Changmin hopped up and settled on the counter next to the man. Or rather, a bit above it. The innocent curiosity never flickered as he leaned to the side, peering first into the sink, and then staring very pointedly at the man.
He waved a hand in front of his face.
When there was no reaction, the young man grinned and clapped, the expression on his face a little less innocent.
"Welcome home," he practically sang, and with another hop, he was standing on the counter, towering over the new, oblivious occupants. "You're going to be so much fun for me, I can tell."
They lasted four months. Changmin was pleasantly surprised; after the first day, he was sure they'd just leave immediately. But they'd been very determined to make the best of a strange situation; they'd endured his opening the cabinets, brushing it off with the excuse that the house, and everything in it, was old, and cabinet catches didn't last forever. They hadn't thought a thing of it when he'd knocked an entire stack of dishes off the counter while they were busy discussing which drawer to put the cutlery in. They'd bored him with their idle conversation, and he'd moved around the rest of the house to see what had changed, and what had remained.
On the second floor, he'd actually put his feet on the floor, and focused himself hard enough that he managed loud thumping steps down the hall. When he'd flipped himself upside-down and slipped through the floor, one hand holding his hat onto his head as he peered at them from his vantage point in the kitchen ceiling, they'd simply been chalking his noises up to old pipes.
"I've changed my mind, you're boring," he'd announced, before moving back up to the second floor and disappearing into a room full of boxes to explore what new knick-knacks they'd brought with for him to play with. Lots of breakables, it seemed; one box was filled with wrapped up china figures that looked almost as old as he was. Smirking, he dipped his hand into the box, his fingers trailing through a few of them. This was now his box. And before they left, he was going to break everything in it.
He'd managed it, much to the chagrin of the female occupant.
As they moved boxes out of the house and into the moving truck, Changmin watched with interest from the old swing on the porch. Every so often, when the wind allowed it, he'd sway along with it, back and forth, feet absently kicking. When they'd finally carried out the last of their things, he hopped to his feet, wrapping his arms around one of the pillars on the front porch and leaning around it to watch as they looked almost sadly back at the house. His house.
"Consider getting a cat next time!" he called, waving as the truck backed down the short driveway and into the street. "It's a lot more fun, you usually last longer if you've a cat!"
Alone again. He skipped back inside, not even looking all that bothered by having to walk through the door they'd so rudely closed, and spread himself out along the couch. Hands folded behind his head as it floated over the armrest, and the slightest hint of a smile tipped the corners of his lips as he closed his eyes. Just like that, he let his mind wander, his ability to hear dampened as he went back into his 'hibernation' to wait for his next unwitting 'friends' to buy his house.
--
The man sitting behind the desk chewed on the cap of a pen, staring with a noticeable apprehension at the slip of paper before him. It was a summons. That much was blatantly obvious by the ‘please report to’ written across the top. It wasn’t so much that he was being summoned that made him worried. It was the fact that he was being summoned by that person. With a soft sigh, he straightened his jacket and stood, hyper-aware of the eyes that were suddenly on him.
A woman touched his arm as he passed her desk, frowning at him, and he merely shrugged before slipping out of the large room filled with desks and into the hallway. It was only a few doors down, but he took the steps slowly, fingers folding the paper this way and that.
He stopped outside the door. The office for those who were being assigned to retrievals. Jung Yunho had worked here for how many hundreds of years, and never once had he been summoned here. Swallowing hard, his throat dry, he knocked, and stepped inside when he was bidden to enter.
“Ah, Yunho. Good, good. I was wondering how long it would take you.” Kim Heechul looked up from the stack of papers he was shuffling through, a bright grin on his ever-youthful face. Though he looked the part of a young man, Yunho knew much better than that. Heechul had been here much longer than he had, though... well he hadn’t gotten any more mature through the years. Even now, the look in his eyes spelled trouble, and Yunho’s stomach gave a nervous twist.
“I’m only forty feet from here,” Yunho pointed out flatly, before sinking into the chair in front of the desk at Heechul’s impatient beckon. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he tried his best to look at whatever Heechul was poring over, without actually looking like he was trying.
Heechul noticed. And pulled the papers off the desk and into his lap.
Brat.
“Others have taken longer,” he mumbled, waving a hand without looking at Yunho. He was busily flicking through his lap-papers, his grin still wide on his face. “I have a few retrievals that need to be done, and I was looking through your file and noticed you’d never done any. It’s something that everyone needs to do eventually, especially if they’re planning on moving up in the company, and... well I assume you don’t want to be doing processing on souls for the rest of eternity, right?”
Yunho was actually very happy with processing souls for the rest of eternity.
“Well. In any case. You’ve been here long enough that you should’ve been pulled up. I guess your connections with Yoochun got you a few passes, but it’s time for you to do your part.”
Yoochun was in charge of their entire floor. And while he and Yunho spoke frequently, Yunho was fairly sure that he’d never done anything to keep him from being asked to perform a retrieval. Biting his tongue, he forced a smile and hoped that the twitching didn’t show too much.
It was Heechul, however. He noticed.
“Well if I must, then... I must, right?” He folded his hands in his lap and leaned back in the seat, expression not betraying the fact that he really, really didn’t want to do this. “Who am I meant to be retrieving, then?”
Heechul was silent for a few minutes, sorting papers this way and that and tossing a few on top of the desk when he’d decided that those weren’t the cases he wanted to give this particular man. Yunho was almost sure that Heechul had forgotten he was sitting there when the man finally looked up.
The gleam in his eyes was worrisome.
“I found the perfect one for you!” He held out the page. Yunho reached for it hesitantly, but Heechul was already explaining its content before he had a chance to properly scan it. “A poltergeist. He’s been down there for seventy years, and every time we’ve sent someone to get him, they’ve come back empty-handed. It’s getting bothersome. I think you’re the man to finally drag him back here, though.”
This was not a good thing. Yunho had met more than his share of poltergeists while working in processing. They were bothersome creatures, human beings who had no sense of maturity. They didn’t care if they were making someone’s life difficult. As long as they were laughing, they saw no problems with what they were up to. And one that had been in the Human World for seventy years... most of the ones Yunho had met had only been down there for five or six years, at most. How had this kid avoided them for so long??
His displeasure was evident now, his face a mask of doubt and annoyance.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s your job.”
Yunho folded the page and stuffed it into his pocket, standing slowly.
“Why do you hate me?” Heechul looked very confused. “I’m serious! Why do you hate me?!”
Heechul merely shrugged, and Yunho let out a groan of frustration before turning and heading toward the door. He tugged it open, and was about to leave, when Heechul spoke up again.
“Yunho.” The man glanced over his shoulder and stared daggers at him. “Don’t come back without Shim Changmin.”
--
The problem with hibernation was that Changmin, more often than not, missed moving day. He rarely woke during the house tours, never realised it when someone sat through his body and on the couch, and most of the time, he missed the chance to pick his box of breakables. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ‘woken up’ to a still-empty house.
So when his eyes flickered open, and he sat up and stretched, he was surprised to be met by the sight of a still empty living room. The furniture sat silent, as furniture usually does, and the kitchen counter was not littered with boxes and dishes and whatever other things the human inhabitants usually spread out there. As he float-walked through the house, peering through walls and into rooms, he frowned. He never just ‘woke up’ for no reason.
This was highly unusual.
He searched the place, bottom to top, and then, with a shrug, made his way back downstairs, determined to spread himself out on the couch again and this time, to stay ‘asleep’ until someone actually showed up. As he hopped onto the banister, arms out like a tightrope walker, he felt something... odd.
One foot moved in front of the other and, with the super-awesome balance that came with not actually having any mass, he walked down the tilted banister on the staircase to the first floor.
There was a man in his living room. Sitting on his ottoman. He tilted his head, watching the man and puffing his cheeks out in frustration. He’d literally just finished searching the house for people, and one had wandered in while he was upstairs. And he hadn’t realised it?
He stood where he was, halfway down the staircase, and simply stared, wondering what the man was doing. Why was he just sitting on the ottoman, his ottoman, and staring at the wall? Changmin let loose the smallest of chuckles, wondering if his next houseguest were a bit on the ‘not okay’ side.
And then he turned, and the poltergeist grinned and waved, as was his custom with new ‘friends’.
He was not at all prepared for the man to wave back. He wobbled when it happened, eyes widening in horror as the hand raised and the fingers wiggled at him, and then he fell right off his perch, crashing through the table that was pushed against the wall and landing on his stomach on the floor. The small clock that had been left behind by the previous owners rattled and fell to the floor, its glass face shattering in front of his own, and he took to staring at that, still completely horrified.
“Are you okay?”
The poltergeist stood up, through the table, and frowned very hard at the man.
“You’re not supposed to be able to see me. It makes things far less fun.” His bottom lip jutted out in an over-exaggerated pout. “Nobody’s been able to see me since I moved out of the last house. I like this one. I demand you leave.”
It didn’t immediately cross his mind that this wasn’t his next tenant. Yunho merely watched in vague amusement as the poltergeist sprang free of the table, feet settling on the air above it so the tall creature towered over the angel. Changmin pointed accusingly.
“I don’t care if you’ve already paid for it or what. I’ve moved SIX TIMES in the last seventy years, I’m TIRED of moving. Get out!”
Stupid human creature with his sixth sense, sitting on Changmin’s ottoman. He adjusted his hat and grabbed the railing of the stairs, swinging himself back up onto it and, with a huff, he trotted back upstairs, leaving the idiot to have his living room until he’d figured out what to do.
Changmin wasn’t about to have his temper tantrum panic attack in front of company.
Though, if he could’ve had a heart attack, he would have done so when the man’s head and shoulders suddenly appeared through the bathroom floor. Changmin had perched himself on the edge of the bathtub, and was busily grumbling to himself about how annoying it was that he might have to move, when the idiot was suddenly THERE. Right there. Sticking his head through Changmin’s floor.
Shocked, he flopped backward, into the bathtub, and his arms may have flailed a little bit as he tried to regain his composure and claw his way out of the old claw-footed thing.
“I KNEW IT!” he shrieked, settling for pulling his long legs in after him and peering over the edge at the half-body, only the top of his head, his hat, and his eyes visible. “I knew you weren’t a human being! I’ve already claimed this house, you ponce. Get out! Getoutgetoutgetout!”
Yunho drummed his fingers on the tile floor, watching the tantrum with a detached enjoyment. He’d only arrived in the Human World about ten minutes ago, and had immediately set himself to the task of finding this house. When he’d arrived, and found the boy sprawled out on the couch with a serene, free expression on his face, he’d immediately contacted his superiors to ask if he was allowed to simply snatch the creature up. After all, it would be much easier to do that than convince someone here so long that it was time to move on.
But he hadn’t been allowed, and when he’d slipped back into the house, Shim Changmin was already performing his search.
“I’m not one of you,” he finally said, locking eyes with the glaring boy. “I’m an angel.”
“Aren’t we all, when asked.” Changmin finally stood from the belly of the tub and settled himself on the edge again, feet and legs still folded inside the porcelain thing. He was keeping his distance from that... intruder. Interloper. Angel. Whatever. “You can be whatever you want, unless it involves being in my house.”
Yunho pulled himself out of the floor, and leaned against the closed bathroom door.
“I’m here to retrieve you. Take you on to the next life.” If the poltergeist could have paled, he would have. “It’s time to move on.”
Without a word, Changmin sank through the edge of the tub, through the floor, and into the room directly below. It had been a while since he’d had to deal with a Retriever, much less one that had managed to surprise him by looking so human. And acting as such, too. Most of the ones that had come after him had told him that they’d been in the business for thousands of years, and that they’d get him to cross over one way or another.
He’d cut deals with them. And they’d gone back to wherever they congregated, probably some angel watercooler, and by the time they’d come back to take him, he’d moved somewhere else.
He was going to have to move again. He sighed, blowing a raspberry in displeasure. Balls. He’d just gotten used to this house, and was enjoying it.
“You know I can follow you easily, right?”
Changmin wished the angel was solid, so he could throw something at him.
“I read your file. You’ve been here a really long time, and you keep avoiding moving on...” Yunho slipped a hand into the pocket and held up the page Heechul had given him. “This is the fourth time they’ve sent someone down for you... is there some reason you don’t want to go?”
The poltergeist frowned darkly and adjusted his hat. “I like it here. The people are fun. And they keep creating new things, they’re fun to play with.”
Yunho took a step closer, and Changmin immediately took one back. He’d met enough of these Retrievers to know that, while it was against their policy to force a person to move along, they still tried anyway. One had gotten him in a headlock and was set on not letting go until he’d promised to come with him. He hadn’t enjoyed that in the least.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Changmin said suddenly, the mischievous grin flaming into life. He met the angel’s eyes with his own, and Yunho found it disturbing how very like Heechul’s expression this poltergeist’s was. “You let me play with one more person. The next one that moves into this house. Let me play with them until they leave, and then you can come back and I’ll go with you.”
It would save him a lot of time, really. He didn’t like when the Retrievers showed up. They followed him around and annoyed him and really, he hadn’t liked dogs that awful much when he was alive. It was vexing to have dog-like humans following him around and begging at him. He watched the angel intently, knowing that, if he were smart, he’d-
“Fine.”
Changmin was secretly thrilled at that little word. He’d stick around and bother the next person for a bit before going off and finding another place, so whenever the angel came back to check on him, he’d find a poltergeist-less house. Freedom!!!
“Check back in a few months, they usually don’t take v-”
“I’ll stay until you’re done.”
…damn.
The argument that ensued probably would have terrified anyone in the house had a new occupant already moved in. Changmin, when angered, had a tendency to be heard by humans. It was something he used to terrorise them. When he focused on something, such as making himself solid enough to move things or make sounds, it happened. He didn’t know nor care if the same thing happened to the angel; he simply spent about four hours shouting about how much he hated him, how he needed him to get out of his house right now, and that he was a funsucker and he was going to ruin Changmin’s last experience on this earth and god, he totally just SUCKED. He took care not to mention that he was planning to escape, and inwardly cursed all the stupid angels that had probably told on him when they’d come back to empty homes.
These people sucked.
Yunho was not having any of it, however. He was set on staying in the house, with Changmin and its soon to be new owner, until said new owner inevitably moved out. He’d remained calm while the poltergeist shouted at him, and even grinned in amusement when he took to throwing anything he could at him. It wasn’t like he could hurt him or anything.
The argument had long since cooled, and the sun was peeking through the windows, when a truck pulled into the driveway. Changmin had been roused a day earlier than he should have been, a fact he sourly informed the angel of. They both sat on the couch, Changmin floating above the cushion with his knees up, elbows resting on them, and watched as the newest addition to their extended slumber party started carrying in his boxes.
“Don’t play with his things,” the angel murmured, unfolding the paper and rereading it for the thousandth time. Changmin pursed his lips and remained where he was, eyes on the box that had been set on the ottoman. His ottoman.
The man returned to the room, his short, dark hair and the back of his neck glittering with sweat after moving the heavier loads. The box in front of the pair was the first he opened, and he withdrew something from inside; with his back to them, they couldn’t see the object in his hands, and Changmin watched with an almost innocent fascination as the tall man moved toward the wall and tapped a nail into it.
It was a big crucifix. Changmin’s grin rivaled that of a Halloween Jack-O’-Lantern.
“The religiony-ones are always the most difficult to get out.” Yunho frowned, and Changmin turned to look at him, eyes shining in excitement. One hand gestured toward the couch that they were sitting on. “I ‘sleep’ here, you’ll have to find somewhere else to do so if you’re staying. I suggest finding something comfortable.”
He hopped off the couch and bounced toward his newest friend, who was checking to make sure the crucifix was attached straight on the wall. Expression still full of glee, he leaned close to the man’s face, and waved a hand in front of it, before looking at Yunho.
“This could take a while.”
^^;;; hehehe. There will be more parts to this. I promise.
Pairing: Not really a pairing.
Rating: G
Genre: Fluffy humour? :3
Notes: Inspired by this.
Disclaimer: My apartment is not haunted by them, much as I would really probably enjoy it.
Summary: Shim Changmin is a poltergeist. One of the most mischievous around. And he enjoys causing trouble for anyone that crosses his path. After spending 70 or so years haunting around the world, he's finally tracked down by Jung Yunho, an otherworld official who has been charged with the task of making Changmin finally cross over. The only problem with that... is that Changmin really, really doesn't feel like going. How many ways can a poltergeist turn an angel's life into a living hell?
It was only ever little things, the inhabitants of the house came to realise. Missing keys. Doors locking themselves. Things falling off shelves they'd sat on for months without incident. Things that could be brushed off. The soft sound of footsteps? The ghost of a chuckle from the other room? Merely their imagination playing tricks on them in the large, old house situated at the end of the row.
Former occupants always second-guessed themselves about it. Rarely were the strange incidents mentioned to the new buyers, and nobody ever seemed to hold them in high enough importance in their minds to mention them to the neighbours. Had they, they might have felt a little less alone in the paranoia that had person after person moving into and out of the house.
To say it was haunted would be overstepping. But it definitely was very much occupied by someone other than the buyers.
The young man was floating, his body arranged as if it were sitting on the ottoman, though no part of him touched it. Long legs were stretched out, crossed at the exposed ankles, and he stretched his arms above his head, letting out a small yawn. Though his eyes seemed to, only momentarily, hold a hint of sleepiness, he was far from it; after all, Shim Changmin never slept. He merely went into a strange little hibernation state. A state he'd just come out of, only to realise that once more the occupants of the house had changed. The expression on his face curious, he hopped in the air, and his feet settled on the air an inch above the floorboards.
He bounced on air toward the kitchen, one hand slipping into his pocket as the other touched the bowler-esque hat on his head, making sure it was still there. As he slipped through the open doorway, his eyes alighted on the happy new owners of the house. His house. Head tilting curiously, he took a few steps closer and leaned in to inspect the woman. If she had any awareness of the fact that the young man was looking at her, face only inches from her own, she didn't show it. Neither she nor the man who was busily unpacking dishes and setting them into the sink seemed to notice him. And Changmin, a man that measured over six feet tall without the inch of air beneath his toes, and who was dressed in an impossibly odd fashion, was very hard to miss.
Brushing his hands over the sleeves of his fuzzy-ish jacket, Changmin hopped up and settled on the counter next to the man. Or rather, a bit above it. The innocent curiosity never flickered as he leaned to the side, peering first into the sink, and then staring very pointedly at the man.
He waved a hand in front of his face.
When there was no reaction, the young man grinned and clapped, the expression on his face a little less innocent.
"Welcome home," he practically sang, and with another hop, he was standing on the counter, towering over the new, oblivious occupants. "You're going to be so much fun for me, I can tell."
They lasted four months. Changmin was pleasantly surprised; after the first day, he was sure they'd just leave immediately. But they'd been very determined to make the best of a strange situation; they'd endured his opening the cabinets, brushing it off with the excuse that the house, and everything in it, was old, and cabinet catches didn't last forever. They hadn't thought a thing of it when he'd knocked an entire stack of dishes off the counter while they were busy discussing which drawer to put the cutlery in. They'd bored him with their idle conversation, and he'd moved around the rest of the house to see what had changed, and what had remained.
On the second floor, he'd actually put his feet on the floor, and focused himself hard enough that he managed loud thumping steps down the hall. When he'd flipped himself upside-down and slipped through the floor, one hand holding his hat onto his head as he peered at them from his vantage point in the kitchen ceiling, they'd simply been chalking his noises up to old pipes.
"I've changed my mind, you're boring," he'd announced, before moving back up to the second floor and disappearing into a room full of boxes to explore what new knick-knacks they'd brought with for him to play with. Lots of breakables, it seemed; one box was filled with wrapped up china figures that looked almost as old as he was. Smirking, he dipped his hand into the box, his fingers trailing through a few of them. This was now his box. And before they left, he was going to break everything in it.
He'd managed it, much to the chagrin of the female occupant.
As they moved boxes out of the house and into the moving truck, Changmin watched with interest from the old swing on the porch. Every so often, when the wind allowed it, he'd sway along with it, back and forth, feet absently kicking. When they'd finally carried out the last of their things, he hopped to his feet, wrapping his arms around one of the pillars on the front porch and leaning around it to watch as they looked almost sadly back at the house. His house.
"Consider getting a cat next time!" he called, waving as the truck backed down the short driveway and into the street. "It's a lot more fun, you usually last longer if you've a cat!"
Alone again. He skipped back inside, not even looking all that bothered by having to walk through the door they'd so rudely closed, and spread himself out along the couch. Hands folded behind his head as it floated over the armrest, and the slightest hint of a smile tipped the corners of his lips as he closed his eyes. Just like that, he let his mind wander, his ability to hear dampened as he went back into his 'hibernation' to wait for his next unwitting 'friends' to buy his house.
--
The man sitting behind the desk chewed on the cap of a pen, staring with a noticeable apprehension at the slip of paper before him. It was a summons. That much was blatantly obvious by the ‘please report to’ written across the top. It wasn’t so much that he was being summoned that made him worried. It was the fact that he was being summoned by that person. With a soft sigh, he straightened his jacket and stood, hyper-aware of the eyes that were suddenly on him.
A woman touched his arm as he passed her desk, frowning at him, and he merely shrugged before slipping out of the large room filled with desks and into the hallway. It was only a few doors down, but he took the steps slowly, fingers folding the paper this way and that.
He stopped outside the door. The office for those who were being assigned to retrievals. Jung Yunho had worked here for how many hundreds of years, and never once had he been summoned here. Swallowing hard, his throat dry, he knocked, and stepped inside when he was bidden to enter.
“Ah, Yunho. Good, good. I was wondering how long it would take you.” Kim Heechul looked up from the stack of papers he was shuffling through, a bright grin on his ever-youthful face. Though he looked the part of a young man, Yunho knew much better than that. Heechul had been here much longer than he had, though... well he hadn’t gotten any more mature through the years. Even now, the look in his eyes spelled trouble, and Yunho’s stomach gave a nervous twist.
“I’m only forty feet from here,” Yunho pointed out flatly, before sinking into the chair in front of the desk at Heechul’s impatient beckon. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he tried his best to look at whatever Heechul was poring over, without actually looking like he was trying.
Heechul noticed. And pulled the papers off the desk and into his lap.
Brat.
“Others have taken longer,” he mumbled, waving a hand without looking at Yunho. He was busily flicking through his lap-papers, his grin still wide on his face. “I have a few retrievals that need to be done, and I was looking through your file and noticed you’d never done any. It’s something that everyone needs to do eventually, especially if they’re planning on moving up in the company, and... well I assume you don’t want to be doing processing on souls for the rest of eternity, right?”
Yunho was actually very happy with processing souls for the rest of eternity.
“Well. In any case. You’ve been here long enough that you should’ve been pulled up. I guess your connections with Yoochun got you a few passes, but it’s time for you to do your part.”
Yoochun was in charge of their entire floor. And while he and Yunho spoke frequently, Yunho was fairly sure that he’d never done anything to keep him from being asked to perform a retrieval. Biting his tongue, he forced a smile and hoped that the twitching didn’t show too much.
It was Heechul, however. He noticed.
“Well if I must, then... I must, right?” He folded his hands in his lap and leaned back in the seat, expression not betraying the fact that he really, really didn’t want to do this. “Who am I meant to be retrieving, then?”
Heechul was silent for a few minutes, sorting papers this way and that and tossing a few on top of the desk when he’d decided that those weren’t the cases he wanted to give this particular man. Yunho was almost sure that Heechul had forgotten he was sitting there when the man finally looked up.
The gleam in his eyes was worrisome.
“I found the perfect one for you!” He held out the page. Yunho reached for it hesitantly, but Heechul was already explaining its content before he had a chance to properly scan it. “A poltergeist. He’s been down there for seventy years, and every time we’ve sent someone to get him, they’ve come back empty-handed. It’s getting bothersome. I think you’re the man to finally drag him back here, though.”
This was not a good thing. Yunho had met more than his share of poltergeists while working in processing. They were bothersome creatures, human beings who had no sense of maturity. They didn’t care if they were making someone’s life difficult. As long as they were laughing, they saw no problems with what they were up to. And one that had been in the Human World for seventy years... most of the ones Yunho had met had only been down there for five or six years, at most. How had this kid avoided them for so long??
His displeasure was evident now, his face a mask of doubt and annoyance.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s your job.”
Yunho folded the page and stuffed it into his pocket, standing slowly.
“Why do you hate me?” Heechul looked very confused. “I’m serious! Why do you hate me?!”
Heechul merely shrugged, and Yunho let out a groan of frustration before turning and heading toward the door. He tugged it open, and was about to leave, when Heechul spoke up again.
“Yunho.” The man glanced over his shoulder and stared daggers at him. “Don’t come back without Shim Changmin.”
--
The problem with hibernation was that Changmin, more often than not, missed moving day. He rarely woke during the house tours, never realised it when someone sat through his body and on the couch, and most of the time, he missed the chance to pick his box of breakables. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ‘woken up’ to a still-empty house.
So when his eyes flickered open, and he sat up and stretched, he was surprised to be met by the sight of a still empty living room. The furniture sat silent, as furniture usually does, and the kitchen counter was not littered with boxes and dishes and whatever other things the human inhabitants usually spread out there. As he float-walked through the house, peering through walls and into rooms, he frowned. He never just ‘woke up’ for no reason.
This was highly unusual.
He searched the place, bottom to top, and then, with a shrug, made his way back downstairs, determined to spread himself out on the couch again and this time, to stay ‘asleep’ until someone actually showed up. As he hopped onto the banister, arms out like a tightrope walker, he felt something... odd.
One foot moved in front of the other and, with the super-awesome balance that came with not actually having any mass, he walked down the tilted banister on the staircase to the first floor.
There was a man in his living room. Sitting on his ottoman. He tilted his head, watching the man and puffing his cheeks out in frustration. He’d literally just finished searching the house for people, and one had wandered in while he was upstairs. And he hadn’t realised it?
He stood where he was, halfway down the staircase, and simply stared, wondering what the man was doing. Why was he just sitting on the ottoman, his ottoman, and staring at the wall? Changmin let loose the smallest of chuckles, wondering if his next houseguest were a bit on the ‘not okay’ side.
And then he turned, and the poltergeist grinned and waved, as was his custom with new ‘friends’.
He was not at all prepared for the man to wave back. He wobbled when it happened, eyes widening in horror as the hand raised and the fingers wiggled at him, and then he fell right off his perch, crashing through the table that was pushed against the wall and landing on his stomach on the floor. The small clock that had been left behind by the previous owners rattled and fell to the floor, its glass face shattering in front of his own, and he took to staring at that, still completely horrified.
“Are you okay?”
The poltergeist stood up, through the table, and frowned very hard at the man.
“You’re not supposed to be able to see me. It makes things far less fun.” His bottom lip jutted out in an over-exaggerated pout. “Nobody’s been able to see me since I moved out of the last house. I like this one. I demand you leave.”
It didn’t immediately cross his mind that this wasn’t his next tenant. Yunho merely watched in vague amusement as the poltergeist sprang free of the table, feet settling on the air above it so the tall creature towered over the angel. Changmin pointed accusingly.
“I don’t care if you’ve already paid for it or what. I’ve moved SIX TIMES in the last seventy years, I’m TIRED of moving. Get out!”
Stupid human creature with his sixth sense, sitting on Changmin’s ottoman. He adjusted his hat and grabbed the railing of the stairs, swinging himself back up onto it and, with a huff, he trotted back upstairs, leaving the idiot to have his living room until he’d figured out what to do.
Changmin wasn’t about to have his temper tantrum panic attack in front of company.
Though, if he could’ve had a heart attack, he would have done so when the man’s head and shoulders suddenly appeared through the bathroom floor. Changmin had perched himself on the edge of the bathtub, and was busily grumbling to himself about how annoying it was that he might have to move, when the idiot was suddenly THERE. Right there. Sticking his head through Changmin’s floor.
Shocked, he flopped backward, into the bathtub, and his arms may have flailed a little bit as he tried to regain his composure and claw his way out of the old claw-footed thing.
“I KNEW IT!” he shrieked, settling for pulling his long legs in after him and peering over the edge at the half-body, only the top of his head, his hat, and his eyes visible. “I knew you weren’t a human being! I’ve already claimed this house, you ponce. Get out! Getoutgetoutgetout!”
Yunho drummed his fingers on the tile floor, watching the tantrum with a detached enjoyment. He’d only arrived in the Human World about ten minutes ago, and had immediately set himself to the task of finding this house. When he’d arrived, and found the boy sprawled out on the couch with a serene, free expression on his face, he’d immediately contacted his superiors to ask if he was allowed to simply snatch the creature up. After all, it would be much easier to do that than convince someone here so long that it was time to move on.
But he hadn’t been allowed, and when he’d slipped back into the house, Shim Changmin was already performing his search.
“I’m not one of you,” he finally said, locking eyes with the glaring boy. “I’m an angel.”
“Aren’t we all, when asked.” Changmin finally stood from the belly of the tub and settled himself on the edge again, feet and legs still folded inside the porcelain thing. He was keeping his distance from that... intruder. Interloper. Angel. Whatever. “You can be whatever you want, unless it involves being in my house.”
Yunho pulled himself out of the floor, and leaned against the closed bathroom door.
“I’m here to retrieve you. Take you on to the next life.” If the poltergeist could have paled, he would have. “It’s time to move on.”
Without a word, Changmin sank through the edge of the tub, through the floor, and into the room directly below. It had been a while since he’d had to deal with a Retriever, much less one that had managed to surprise him by looking so human. And acting as such, too. Most of the ones that had come after him had told him that they’d been in the business for thousands of years, and that they’d get him to cross over one way or another.
He’d cut deals with them. And they’d gone back to wherever they congregated, probably some angel watercooler, and by the time they’d come back to take him, he’d moved somewhere else.
He was going to have to move again. He sighed, blowing a raspberry in displeasure. Balls. He’d just gotten used to this house, and was enjoying it.
“You know I can follow you easily, right?”
Changmin wished the angel was solid, so he could throw something at him.
“I read your file. You’ve been here a really long time, and you keep avoiding moving on...” Yunho slipped a hand into the pocket and held up the page Heechul had given him. “This is the fourth time they’ve sent someone down for you... is there some reason you don’t want to go?”
The poltergeist frowned darkly and adjusted his hat. “I like it here. The people are fun. And they keep creating new things, they’re fun to play with.”
Yunho took a step closer, and Changmin immediately took one back. He’d met enough of these Retrievers to know that, while it was against their policy to force a person to move along, they still tried anyway. One had gotten him in a headlock and was set on not letting go until he’d promised to come with him. He hadn’t enjoyed that in the least.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Changmin said suddenly, the mischievous grin flaming into life. He met the angel’s eyes with his own, and Yunho found it disturbing how very like Heechul’s expression this poltergeist’s was. “You let me play with one more person. The next one that moves into this house. Let me play with them until they leave, and then you can come back and I’ll go with you.”
It would save him a lot of time, really. He didn’t like when the Retrievers showed up. They followed him around and annoyed him and really, he hadn’t liked dogs that awful much when he was alive. It was vexing to have dog-like humans following him around and begging at him. He watched the angel intently, knowing that, if he were smart, he’d-
“Fine.”
Changmin was secretly thrilled at that little word. He’d stick around and bother the next person for a bit before going off and finding another place, so whenever the angel came back to check on him, he’d find a poltergeist-less house. Freedom!!!
“Check back in a few months, they usually don’t take v-”
“I’ll stay until you’re done.”
…damn.
The argument that ensued probably would have terrified anyone in the house had a new occupant already moved in. Changmin, when angered, had a tendency to be heard by humans. It was something he used to terrorise them. When he focused on something, such as making himself solid enough to move things or make sounds, it happened. He didn’t know nor care if the same thing happened to the angel; he simply spent about four hours shouting about how much he hated him, how he needed him to get out of his house right now, and that he was a funsucker and he was going to ruin Changmin’s last experience on this earth and god, he totally just SUCKED. He took care not to mention that he was planning to escape, and inwardly cursed all the stupid angels that had probably told on him when they’d come back to empty homes.
These people sucked.
Yunho was not having any of it, however. He was set on staying in the house, with Changmin and its soon to be new owner, until said new owner inevitably moved out. He’d remained calm while the poltergeist shouted at him, and even grinned in amusement when he took to throwing anything he could at him. It wasn’t like he could hurt him or anything.
The argument had long since cooled, and the sun was peeking through the windows, when a truck pulled into the driveway. Changmin had been roused a day earlier than he should have been, a fact he sourly informed the angel of. They both sat on the couch, Changmin floating above the cushion with his knees up, elbows resting on them, and watched as the newest addition to their extended slumber party started carrying in his boxes.
“Don’t play with his things,” the angel murmured, unfolding the paper and rereading it for the thousandth time. Changmin pursed his lips and remained where he was, eyes on the box that had been set on the ottoman. His ottoman.
The man returned to the room, his short, dark hair and the back of his neck glittering with sweat after moving the heavier loads. The box in front of the pair was the first he opened, and he withdrew something from inside; with his back to them, they couldn’t see the object in his hands, and Changmin watched with an almost innocent fascination as the tall man moved toward the wall and tapped a nail into it.
It was a big crucifix. Changmin’s grin rivaled that of a Halloween Jack-O’-Lantern.
“The religiony-ones are always the most difficult to get out.” Yunho frowned, and Changmin turned to look at him, eyes shining in excitement. One hand gestured toward the couch that they were sitting on. “I ‘sleep’ here, you’ll have to find somewhere else to do so if you’re staying. I suggest finding something comfortable.”
He hopped off the couch and bounced toward his newest friend, who was checking to make sure the crucifix was attached straight on the wall. Expression still full of glee, he leaned close to the man’s face, and waved a hand in front of it, before looking at Yunho.
“This could take a while.”
^^;;; hehehe. There will be more parts to this. I promise.