[FF] A Crescent Night
Title: A Crescent Night
Characters: Tao/Chanyeol
Genre: Circus! AU
Rating: PG
Summary: 963 words. An invitation to the most unusual of festivities came one night with a crescent smile.
Note: Part of Bluestanista's 100 Days with EXO Challenge for exo_days. Week 3: Circus.
Tao’s family was very poor. They lived in a small shed made up of patched-up pieces of plywood scraps; the ragged holes reflecting the changes in the weather which brought about their dilapidated state had been covered with used rubber mats and thumbtacks. The rusting metal sheets above them, unsafely held down by blocks of hollow concrete and old car tires against the unstable pillars of their shed, could barely even cover his very ill mother and a five year old little sister from the afternoon sun’s heat and the night’s freezing breeze.
His father died when he was seven; his overworked mother fell sick when he was nine, leaving him to take care of a little sister who was too young for the world. At a young age of ten, he had already assumed the role of an adult, taking little jobs here and there to work for food.
Sometimes, for a reasonable exchange of sickles, nice housewives in town would ask him to do light chores just appropriate for his small ,bony frame - water the plants, mop the veranda or weed the garden; kind gentlemen would ask for their leather shoes to be polished clean or for their letters to be delivered.
Today was a good day for him - although chopping wood and cleaning chimneys required harder labor than usual, but with a better pay, he had earned fifteen good sickles enough to buy two cups of rice, a pack of sundried fish, and a few stems of green vegetables; and feed a family of three for dinner. He was physically tired but there was a satisfied smile etched on his youthful face.
He looked up at the clock tower that stood tall amidst all the houses and buildings in the center of the town, the orange sun was already getting ready to hide behind it. It was exactly five fifty-nine in the afternoon.
Fourty five seconds remaining. Thirty seconds. Ten seconds. Five seconds.
Tao closed his eyes and listened to the rhythmic sound of six o’clock bells that he loved to hear.
But something seemed unusual today. No actually, everything was unusual.
Because when the clock froze at six and he opened his eyes, everything around him stopped moving as well.
It was very strange for a very busy town to suddenly be as quiet that the boy swore he could only hear the sound of his own breathing.
Tao swallowed, tensely eyeing on an elevated rectangular platform that suddenly appeared with a popping sound just meters behind him. There was a smaller circular platform placed right in the middle of the stage, lit up with a ray of spotlight. The colored lights that flicker from the front stage created an atmosphere of something worth anticipating, adding to the aesthetics of the bright decorative streamers that hanged from one pole to another.
“Oh dear ladies and gentlemen! In this small town, a Wiseman from Afar had come! With a deal, you can ask and learn! The answers to your questions, you will earn!”
With another popping sound, a foreign-looking young man was suddenly standing in the middle of the stage, right into the circular platform under the spotlight. He was wearing a pair of matching clean white tuxedo and pants with a red bowtie tied neatly around his neck and an equally white tophat above his head, curly fringe of brunette falling over his mysterious eyes.
“Why, hello there, young one,” the man greeted him with a nod.
“H-hello,” Tao squeaked nervously, lightly lowering his head for a bow.
“So I see there is only one participant this time around,” the man sighed, looking at crescent-shaped moon before looking back down at the younger one with the smile that copied the moon. “And a very young one too.”
Tao blinked at the man under his long, dark eyelashes, his round eyes meeting the mysterious light brown orbs of the other.
“Is this your first time?”
“First time for what, Sir?” Tao asked politely, a tone conscious of the right manners.
“Ah, of course it is,” the man tapped his own forehead, talking to himself. “How would I ever forget a face like yours if you were a Repeater, and we barely have any.”
Tao blinked again, slightly furrowing his eyebrows. “I do not understand, sir.”
The man laughed with a flicker of amusement in the eyes. “My name, little one, is Chanyeol .”
“Tao, my name is Huang Zitao, Sir,” he introduced himself.
“TaoTao,” Chanyeol repeated cheerfully, playing with the single syllable of the boy’s name. “This round’s only one!”
Chanyeol noticed the still clueless look, a slight pout forming in the younger boy’s face. “You are so cute!” He chuckled before continuing.
“How young is our little TaoTao right here?”
“I am only ten, Sir,” Tao answered.
“Ten!” Chanyeol exclaimed with a spill of nostalgia, “I was once ten too!”
The boy almost jumped from where he was standing.
“You see young TaoTao, every once in a crescent moon, when the moon has the most proportional shape of an upward smile - the tunnel that separates this world from ours opens up. During this short period we, the people from Afar, would travel over your world and literally bring over a festival across worlds to celebrate!” Chanyeol explained, his eyes shining in the moonlight and his hands gesturing all over the place. “But only the most special, well-selected human beings would be able to come. And this makes you one!”
Chanyeol’s smile, under the grinning moon, was the biggest at the moment.
Additional A/N: This ends here for now(?) due to lack of time for writing. May be continued in the future(?) lol
Characters: Tao/Chanyeol
Genre: Circus! AU
Rating: PG
Summary: 963 words. An invitation to the most unusual of festivities came one night with a crescent smile.
Note: Part of Bluestanista's 100 Days with EXO Challenge for exo_days. Week 3: Circus.
Tao’s family was very poor. They lived in a small shed made up of patched-up pieces of plywood scraps; the ragged holes reflecting the changes in the weather which brought about their dilapidated state had been covered with used rubber mats and thumbtacks. The rusting metal sheets above them, unsafely held down by blocks of hollow concrete and old car tires against the unstable pillars of their shed, could barely even cover his very ill mother and a five year old little sister from the afternoon sun’s heat and the night’s freezing breeze.
His father died when he was seven; his overworked mother fell sick when he was nine, leaving him to take care of a little sister who was too young for the world. At a young age of ten, he had already assumed the role of an adult, taking little jobs here and there to work for food.
Sometimes, for a reasonable exchange of sickles, nice housewives in town would ask him to do light chores just appropriate for his small ,bony frame - water the plants, mop the veranda or weed the garden; kind gentlemen would ask for their leather shoes to be polished clean or for their letters to be delivered.
Today was a good day for him - although chopping wood and cleaning chimneys required harder labor than usual, but with a better pay, he had earned fifteen good sickles enough to buy two cups of rice, a pack of sundried fish, and a few stems of green vegetables; and feed a family of three for dinner. He was physically tired but there was a satisfied smile etched on his youthful face.
He looked up at the clock tower that stood tall amidst all the houses and buildings in the center of the town, the orange sun was already getting ready to hide behind it. It was exactly five fifty-nine in the afternoon.
Fourty five seconds remaining. Thirty seconds. Ten seconds. Five seconds.
Tao closed his eyes and listened to the rhythmic sound of six o’clock bells that he loved to hear.
But something seemed unusual today. No actually, everything was unusual.
Because when the clock froze at six and he opened his eyes, everything around him stopped moving as well.
It was very strange for a very busy town to suddenly be as quiet that the boy swore he could only hear the sound of his own breathing.
Tao swallowed, tensely eyeing on an elevated rectangular platform that suddenly appeared with a popping sound just meters behind him. There was a smaller circular platform placed right in the middle of the stage, lit up with a ray of spotlight. The colored lights that flicker from the front stage created an atmosphere of something worth anticipating, adding to the aesthetics of the bright decorative streamers that hanged from one pole to another.
“Oh dear ladies and gentlemen! In this small town, a Wiseman from Afar had come! With a deal, you can ask and learn! The answers to your questions, you will earn!”
With another popping sound, a foreign-looking young man was suddenly standing in the middle of the stage, right into the circular platform under the spotlight. He was wearing a pair of matching clean white tuxedo and pants with a red bowtie tied neatly around his neck and an equally white tophat above his head, curly fringe of brunette falling over his mysterious eyes.
“Why, hello there, young one,” the man greeted him with a nod.
“H-hello,” Tao squeaked nervously, lightly lowering his head for a bow.
“So I see there is only one participant this time around,” the man sighed, looking at crescent-shaped moon before looking back down at the younger one with the smile that copied the moon. “And a very young one too.”
Tao blinked at the man under his long, dark eyelashes, his round eyes meeting the mysterious light brown orbs of the other.
“Is this your first time?”
“First time for what, Sir?” Tao asked politely, a tone conscious of the right manners.
“Ah, of course it is,” the man tapped his own forehead, talking to himself. “How would I ever forget a face like yours if you were a Repeater, and we barely have any.”
Tao blinked again, slightly furrowing his eyebrows. “I do not understand, sir.”
The man laughed with a flicker of amusement in the eyes. “My name, little one, is Chanyeol .”
“Tao, my name is Huang Zitao, Sir,” he introduced himself.
“TaoTao,” Chanyeol repeated cheerfully, playing with the single syllable of the boy’s name. “This round’s only one!”
Chanyeol noticed the still clueless look, a slight pout forming in the younger boy’s face. “You are so cute!” He chuckled before continuing.
“How young is our little TaoTao right here?”
“I am only ten, Sir,” Tao answered.
“Ten!” Chanyeol exclaimed with a spill of nostalgia, “I was once ten too!”
The boy almost jumped from where he was standing.
“You see young TaoTao, every once in a crescent moon, when the moon has the most proportional shape of an upward smile - the tunnel that separates this world from ours opens up. During this short period we, the people from Afar, would travel over your world and literally bring over a festival across worlds to celebrate!” Chanyeol explained, his eyes shining in the moonlight and his hands gesturing all over the place. “But only the most special, well-selected human beings would be able to come. And this makes you one!”
Chanyeol’s smile, under the grinning moon, was the biggest at the moment.
Additional A/N: This ends here for now(?) due to lack of time for writing. May be continued in the future(?) lol