“Can we do something?” Kyuhyun asked, eyes wide and hopeful. “Please? Changmin? Please? I’m bored. I want to do something. Please?”

Changmin clenched his jaw, opening his mouth to tell Kyuhyun to “shut the hell up!”. A burst of flames, and a familiar (and unwelcome) voice interrupted him.

Changmin swallowed, staring with wide-eyes at the flickering form in front of him; it could just be a regular old flame, but judging from the fact that he was almost ninety-nine percent sure he had heard Yunho’s voice, his brother was trying to contact him (sweet Devil, Hell really needed to upgrade its methods of communication; humans didn’t have to deal with this. They could just turn their little phones off, pretending that they weren’t receiving about twenty messages a minute).

“What was that?” Kyuhyun asked, frowning as he watched Changmin attempt to put out the flame. This was one of the many downsides of communication by fire; while humans only had to click a button, demons had to damage their shoes (their good, designer shoes, Changmin thought mournfully) putting out the flames, to prevent any unwanted communication.

And, of course, there was nothing stopping the other party from sending through another shoot of fire.

“I need to use the bathroom,” Changmin said hurriedly, slamming his foot against another flame.

“There’s a bathroom around here?” Kyuhyun inquired.

Changmin shrugged, desperate to get away. “There’s bushes.”

“And you’re supposed to pee in them?” Kyuhyun blinked, and then a grin spread across his face. “Awesome!” he exclaimed eagerly. “We can’t do that in Heaven. Well, you’re not supposed to, but if people get really desperate…well, let’s just say, with all that rain, the humans never notice.”

“…Right then,” Changmin took a step backwards. “I need to go. Don’t go anywhere alright?”

“Can I come and admire you ?” Kyuhyun asked hopefully.

“No.”

Kyuhyun pouted. “Now you’re just being mean,” he mumbled. “I even kissed you!”

Changmin saw another flame burst out from the corner of his eye. He slammed his foot against it and, with a warning glance at Kyuhyun, ducked behind a row of bushes, and hurried forward until he was sure he had put enough distance between himself and the angel.

“Do you have to be so damn persistent?” Changmin growled, as another flame burst out of the ground. It bobbed up and down, as if mocking his predicament.

“It’s me,” said a disembodied voice.

“I know hyung,” Changmin snapped. “I heard you the first time.” He slumped backwards, sighing. “What is it?”

“Did you get rid of that angel — oh, Jae, that tickles!”

Changmin froze.

“No — no, don’t touch me there Boo, you know I’m sensitive!”

“Hyung,” Changmin choked, tempted to put out the flame and pretend he’d never heard anything. “What the are you doing?”

“Hmm? Oh, Jaejoong’s taking my measurements so I can get the alterations for my outfit,” Yunho replied. Changmin inwardly let out a sigh of relief. “Speaking of which, Minnie, you should try out that outfit Jae got for you.”

“I’m not wearing that horrible thing,” Changmin snapped. He shot a brief glance behind his shoulder to ensure that Kyuhyun was nowhere in sight.

“Hey!” Jaejoong yelled. “That outfit was adorable!”

Changmin’s jaw clenched. “It had ruffles. It had bows. It was pink! I am not wearing it!”

Yunho coughed. “You have to admit — ”

“Yunnie!”

“ — that pink is really your colour.” Changmin could almost picture Yunho’s doting smile and adoring eyes as he stared at Jaejoong. “Changmin, you’re wearing it.”

“Yunho’s the King,” Jaejoong added, matter-of-factly.

Changmin’s eye twitched. “I know Jaejoong,” he growled.

“Hyung,” Jaejoong retorted. “It’s Jaejoong hyung.”

“Hey Changmin, are you coming or not?!”

Changmin froze, his eyes growing wide at the sound of Kyuhyun’s voice. Judging by its volume, the angel was clearly in a lose vicinity.

“Uh,” Changmin choked, trying to end the communication as fast as possible, “the point is, I got rid of the angel, so — ”

“So you can come home then,” Yunho finished.

“Yeah — wait, what?”

“Dinner’s getting cold,” his brother said firmly. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”

“I’m spending the night at Minho’s house,” Changmin protested. Sure, his best friend was visiting his grandmother in the North at the moment, but Yunho didn’t know that, did he? (Well Minho was technically Yunho’s employee — a servant at the palace — but Changmin still didn’t think his brother would notice).

“Changmin,” Yunho snapped, “if Umma finds out I’m not making sure you’re having your vegetables, she will skin me alive — and, besides, Boojae made a lovely dinner for you.” The sappy tone his voice undertook made Changmin let out an involuntary sigh. “And I’m King,” his brother continued, “so, you know, time in the dungeons if you don’t show up.”

“Oh shut up hyung,” Changmin snorted. “You wouldn’t throw me in the dungeons.”

“Smart idea Yunnie,” Jaejoong piped up.

“…I’m on my way.”

…

“So where are we going again?” Kyuhyun questioned. Somehow Changmin had once again found himself dragging the angel behind him (and wondering why he didn’t just boot the creature out of the nearest portal).

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Changmin replied firmly. “You’re going to hang outside in the woods until I come out and tell you it’s safe to leave.”

“But you’re going to a palace,” Kyuhyun pressed, his eyes growing wide.

“Yes.”

“To see the King.”

“…Yes.” Changmin paused briefly, and then continued walking. He thought back to what he had told Kyuhyun about his reasons for visiting the King — “the king of all demons entrusted me to get rid of the angel intruder - I am going to tell him that I have fulfilled my task…even if I haven’t. Yet.”

(Changmin decided that his explanation sounded a lot better than, “my big brother can’t be bothered to run this place himself, so he dumps all the ty jobs on me”).

“That is so cool,” Kyuhyun murmured. “So you do tasks and stuff for the King? Like a knight or something?”

“…Yeah, something like that.” Changmin averted his eyes.

Kyuhyun stood on the tips of his toes, and rose a few centimetres off the ground. Changmin shot him a glare, and dragged him back down onto solid ground.

“Is that the palace over there?” Kyuhyun questioned, pointing in the direction of the looming structure.

“Yes,” Changmin replied.

“And I can’t come in?”

“No.” Changmin felt his eye twitch.

“Can I — ?”

Changmin turned slightly, irritation evident on his face. “Is this where you make some strange ual innuendo?” he demanded.

“Yes,” the angel replied, smiling. “I was going to say, ‘can I at least inside you’?”

Changmin stood still for a moment, debating whether to ask the angel how the hell he even knew about these things. Then, he decided, if the angel could slip inside Hell — something that had not been done before in Changmin’s lifetime — what was stopping him from accessing other…things.

“Kyuhyun, if that were to happen, the roles would be very different,” he said at last. “Now, be a good angel, and hide in the woods.”

As he walked off, it didn’t even occur to him that those may have been the wrong words to say.

“A ‘good’ angel…” Kyuhyun murmured, his eyes narrowing. “Now, that was the wrong thing to say Hot Demon Dude — when am I ever a ‘good’ angel?”

…

AN:

Okay for those of you confused about the whole ‘fire communication’ thing…basically, if you want to contact someone, they have methods - demon magic, that I haven’t thought out in too much detail yet — that allows them to send a flame to the person they want to talk to, and they can communicate through that. Sort of like in Harry Potter. I didn’t want to use phones, because somehow, they just didn’t seem to fit…I just hope I didn’t confuse the hell (no pun intended xD) out of you guys with that scene.

Thank you to everyone who has commented so far! Hope you continue to enjoy this story. The YunJae and YooSu couples will be back in the next chapter :D