Excuse Me Miss

“Who in heaven’s name has turned my song ‘Always Love’ into this remixed version?” an irate Jonghyun didn’t even try to keep irritation out of his voice. “Excuse me, miss? Can you just go back to where you came from?”

“Huh? Are you talking to me?” The red hair wanted to confirm with eyes wide open in disbelief.

“Yes, you and that pink-haired miss too,” Jonghyun waved his hand in increasing annoyance towards the pink-haired occupant of the cloud. “I had clearly asked for 4 male gods or semi-gods. Even demi-gods would have done.” Jonghyun’s rant didn’t allow anyone to interrupt him. “And what do they send me? One water god who is busy playing with his pet fish, two females that I clearly did not ask for and one child. How am I supposed to create an all-boy choir out of this mix?” Jonghyun sat down on the cloud and crossed his legs in an attempt to calm himself down and think of a solution. He even picked up a bit of cloud and fluffed it to hug into his chest.

“Who are you calling a child?” The thin lanky young boy snarled at the God of music, his innocent face completely replaced by flaming eyes. “Next time you call me a child; I will burn you to ashes.”

“Who made you a god? I am a man, not a miss! Get your eyes checked,” The red-haired, cross-dressed male screeched in a deep voice which underlined his gender proclamation.

“Wait! I don’t care about the others, but I am not a female in a thousand years!” The pink-haired male shouted to raise his voice above the other two. He did act like one though when he stepped near the sitting god and tightly clutched and pulled the god’s pale-gold hair with both his hands.

The water god, Onew, started laughing at the scene in front of him. He fluffed up a bit of cloud into a chair and sat down, still laughing. He had to balance himself some as the chair was a little, okay a lot crooked due to his unrestrained amusement.

The red-haired, dressed-as-a-woman-but-tallest-of-them-all male, pushed Onew to create some space for himself on the same chair and sat down, putting an arm around Onew’s waist in the guise of balancing himself on the crooked chair. Seeing the pout on his chair-sharer’s face, Onew stopped laughing and turned slightly to place a sloppy kiss on pouter’s cheek. “You look so beautiful, love. No wonder Jonghyun is confused,” the water god whispered in the taller man’s ear, causing him to pout even more.

“Ahem!” Onew loudly cleared his throat. When the other three paid him no attention, it was his turn to present a pout to his love. Minho, took one look at him and let out a loud rumble, immediately silencing every one. Onew pressed another kiss to Minho’s cheek in gratitude.

Onew cleared his throat again, needlessly, “Ahem!” When the pink-haired man raised a brow in irritation, Onew hurried with his words, “If you both will stop screeching and leave the poor soul alone, I will make the introductions so he does not make the same mistake again.”

Kibum immediately stopped pulling music god’s hair but still held on to the pale-gold hair in his fingers, ready to begin his torture at a moment’s notice.

Taemin too became his usual baby-faced innocence, all traces of fire gone from his face, but the cold heat could be felt all over the cloud. Jonghyun tried to hide his fearful quivering.

“The god with poor eyesight, as he has recently exhibited to all of us, is the newly crowned God of music – Jonghyun,” Onew scowled at the music god and mimed with his hands that the said god needed to get himself a pair of spectacles. At least that’s what he attempted to do by circling his hands in front of his eyes.

Taemin scratched his head, “Why are you imitating a bullfrog, hyungnim?”

Onew brought down his hands and sighed at the failure of his mime.

Kibum had other more important concerns, “What happened to our previous music god? When did this imbecile get promoted? How come I was not informed? Will he make my cherubs change their instrument once again. It was so difficult to move them from harps to musical arrows. It’s been a thousand years, but some of them still get confused and twang their bow instead of shooting arrows from it.”

Onew quickly cut in the moment Kibum paused for breath, “Junsu had to go down to mortal world to save his messenger – Jaejoong – from his eternal foot-in-the-mouth disease. He abdicated because, in his own words, ‘I spend so much time traveling back and forth from mortal world that my hair have stopped changing color. I am stuck with this insipid black color. I am going down to bring back Jaejoong forever. If I can convince him to come back for eternity with no-more trips down, maybe I can get his broken filter repaired and he will stop spouting non-sense every once in a while which gets us both in trouble. And hopefully, my hair will begin to change color again.’ And since heaven cannot be without a music god for the crowning ceremony of new gods next month, Jonghyun our music prodigy was elevated to his new status of god.” Onew took a deep, much-needed breath and smiled at everyone for not interrupting his explanation.

Kibum looked at the god whose hair he still held in his hands. He gave a brief pull to focus the god’s attention on himself and queried, “Are you going to make my cherubs change from musical arrows to another instrument? Because if you do, I am going to pull each of your hair, one by one, from the root, very very painfully.”

Jonghyun didn’t dare to nod in fear of getting some of his hair pulled by their roots right at that moment. He managed a soft “No.” On hearing his own squeak, he gently cleared his throat and gave a “No” which was more befitting his new position as a god.

When Jonghyun saw the pink-haired female beam at him in approval, he lost his heart. Forgetting that his hair were still held at ransom, Jonghyun tilted his head to look more clearly at his torturer and the new owner of his heart. And, he promptly left a bunch of hair, with their roots, in his new love’s hands as a token of his affection and a symbol of how much he didn’t mind getting tortured for the sake of love.

Kibum looked at the pale gold strands that was all that was left of Jonghyun’s head in his hands and grumbled to the lanky god standing beside them, “Taemin, I can see his eyes turn heart shaped. Stop shooting your arrows at him.”

Taemin stepped closer, brows furrowed in puzzlement, “But I didn’t do anything. His eyes are turning on their own. Or were they heart-shaped from the beginning? Did you check his eyes before?” As he spoke, Taemin began to eye-search the cloud for a hint of his cherubs, finding none.

Minho decided to stop nuzzling Onew’s hair and added his own two bits to the highly inane conversation, in his personal opinion, “Are you forgetting that he is a god and immune to machinations of other heavenly beings?”

Kibum and Taemin looked at Minho as one and then at each other, before turning their heads to look down at the cross-legged, short god who was busy pulling out his hair by the roots, one by one.

When Jonghyun had a bunch of his hair gathered in his hand, he looked up at the new owner of his heart and offered up the collection, “Here, my dazzling beauty, have some more as a token of my love. Or, do you want me to weave them into a bracelet for you?”

Taemin sat down on the cloud as his legs refused to support his body shaking with deep laughter.

Onew and Minho held each other tightly to keep themselves seated on their crooked chair as they guffawed loudest of all.

Kibum stared aghast, with mouth wide open in a silent scream, at the new god who continued to smile at Kibum with his heart eyes, as if pulling out his hair was an every-day occurrence for him.