#celstarter

[ celxvictoria​ ]

There was a small wooded area near one of Seoul’s bigger parks, and Zitao often frequented its trails when he needed to surround himself with nature. He had a favourite tree where he sat to read a book or do his homework. That’s where he was headed that day, a small bag slung over his shoulder as he breathed the air around him, listening to the sound of the birds.

As he neared the tree, he came to a stop, his brow creasing at the sight of what looked like...well blood on the path. It hadn’t soaked into the ground, but it didn’t look fresh either. Zitao didn’t know what to think, but if it was blood...then something had happened here. He only hoped it was the blood of some kind of animal.

Pulling one of the rings off his fingers, he clenched it tightly in his fist, prepared to fight if the moment came for it. He slipped into the bushes, carefully stepping off the path towards where the blood seemed to lead, though he was still unsure if it was even a good idea. His heart thudded in his chest as he continued to step through the bushes, twigs snapping noisily beneath his feet. He nearly tripped as he walked, gripping onto a tree to steady himself as he looked down to see what he had walked into --

Zitao would do just about anything for his parents. And yes, that included tagging along to something he wasn’t too interested in. Like a figure skating show. He was never really into that sort of thing, but his mother definitely was. As he grew up, figure skating shows would be playing every single time they were on - no exceptions. Not that he complained. He usually just did something else while she cooed over people dancing on ice.

But today his father was busy, so Zitao was requested to tag along in his place. Of course, he accepted. What else could he really do?

And that was why he was sitting on a seat, watching people skating across ice while his mother whispered to him in awestruck Mandarin, clapping her hands with delight. Zitao wanted to fall asleep and take a nap - the music was quite peaceful.

“I like her,” his mom said suddenly, a little louder this time.

Zitao looked up in time to see the lithe figure of a young woman leap into the air and execute a perfect twirl and landing rather gracefully back on the ice. He blinked in surprise. As a martial artist, he was no stranger to doing flips and spins, but he wasn’t entirely sure he could do such a thing on skates and on ice. He could skate, but not really like this. It was admirable, but he still preferred martial arts over anything else.

When the show came to an end, he was being tugged to the area where the audience could meet the skaters. 

“Is my Korean good enough?” Zitao’s mom asked, still speaking plain old Mandarin. “Zitao, can you translate?”

Zitao just nodded, thinking that maybe it would be better anyway. People complained about his mother’s Chinese accent at times. He was practically dragged by his wrist, though he didn’t complain, towards one of the skaters. His mother had barely gotten three feet from her when she began speaking, almost overwhelming him with the amount of words she was using. Zitao looked over at is mother and raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to finish before turning towards her and translating basically what she’d just said.

He was falling asleep. Again.

The EDM music pounded through his ears, people on the dance floor moving like some kind of vast ocean as they threw their arms into the air and danced their hearts out. Wonshik watched them tiredly, wondering why they all still had so much energy at this time of night. He was just ready to quite simply throw fifty songs onto the playlist, put them on loop, lock his laptop and disappear into the storage room for a nap that would probably take the rest of the night. The club would be without a DJ for the rest of the night, but Wonshik couldn’t bring himself to care.

“You complain to me about making you lose your job and then you start whining about the one you have,” Ravi said sharply. “If you don’t want to DJ then step back and let me do it,”

There were several things Ravi looked forward to when he finally gained control of the human’s body again. Most of them only involved letting certain people know he was still around - and he hadn’t forgotten about them. He laughed when he felt Wonshik protesting rather futilely at the back of his mind, in not so many words telling him to cut it out and stop ruining his friendships. But Ravi wouldn’t stop. He didn’t want to stop. He just enjoyed toying with people too much.

So when he discovered that little angel’s phone number in his cellphone, he thought life was quite simply piling the gifts at his feet. He wondered to himself if he could potentially lure the angel somewhere so he could play around more - the issue was he already knew impersonating Wonshik probably wouldn’t work. But he could try. 

   [Text: Hakyeon^^] hey 

   [Text: Hakyeon^^] what are u doing?

Wonshik yawned tiredly as he dropped songs onto the playlist in front of him. The music pounded around him loudly, clearing out any and all thoughts he could potentially be having. Though the music was loud, intense and more than a little bit eccentric at times, Wonshik was still bored. He wished he could be at home, producing his own music. But at the very least with songs that had a decent back-beat, he could improvise raps under his breath as practice instead of dealing with playlists. Unfortunately, most EDM songs weren’t things he could easily rap to, leaving him to sit behind the DJ table with his lyrics book open in front of him, the page still completely empty.

How on earth did you live with this job, Ravi? Wonshik thought tiredly, not really expecting an answer.

“It’s not my fault you don’t think it’s fun. I think it’s really fun,” Ravi replied, his voice laced with irritation. “The people make it even more fun,”

That’s because you’re disgusting and perverted, Wonshik thought.

“I am not. I just like to have a little fun every once in awhile,”

Pervert,

“Nothing I do pleases you,”

And you never will. Go away,

“You called me first, no need to get your panties in a twist,”

Ravi was used to receiving spontaneous text messages from people who once knew Wonshik. He didn’t recognize the name from which the message was sent, and so, he simply ignored it, deleting the message so he didn’t have to worry about it later. His phone was crap for memory anyway. Music had priority over text messages. Unless of course those texts were just too entertaining to erase.

Chuckling softly to himself, he fixed himself a quick lunch eating it quickly before flopping back onto his bed to take a short nap before he would have to actually get up and be a productive member of human society. Or at least as productive as a demon could be. He would admit he wasn’t nearly as productive as the human inside him was when he was in control, but demons weren’t exactly renowned for efficiency. Out of the seven deadly sins, sloth happened to be one of the ones that had manifested in Ravi, next to pride and lust – because that was just the way Ravi worked.

A knock at his door dragged him from his doze. He sat up, fixing his bangs into a more desirable position before standing up, wondering bitterly who the hell was knocking on his door. He wasn’t expecting anyone to come over. Hell, he never invited anyone over. Wonshik was the one who did that.

Stepping over to the door, Ravi pulled it open, dark eyes staring into the face of a young woman he simply did not recognize.

Wonshik felt awful the next time he opened his eyes. He fumbled for his cellphone which rested in a completely different spot than it usually did if he had set it down - and by the look of it, it had a whole new dent in it. Stupid Ravi must’ve went and dropped it. Again.

He flicked it on, sighing at the calendar date displayed in the pale white lights. He’d lost a week and a half. And the worst part was he’d been unconscious for all of it. God knows what Ravi had done in that time...

Though he was still half asleep, he pulled open his text messages, sighing at the rather rude series of text messages Ravi had sent to Jaejoong in his absence. Didn’t he have anything better to do?

‘You know me better than that, Wonshikkie” Ravi’s tired, mocking voice grumbled. He was rather peeved that he’d been knocked from his pedestal while sleeping of all things.

Tapping on the screen, Wonshik began to send a new text message, this one more polite than the previous ones.

   [Text: Jaejoong] Hey, Jae, sorry. Ravi had free reign of the world for the last week and a half. I’m back now.

Wonshik chewed his lip, knowing that he really had no proof of the fact other than his word choice. Ravi didn’t use many fancy words. Wonshik, however, lived off them. Songwriting did that to a person.

   [Text: Jaejoong] I hope he didn’t say anything too awful to you. I’m too scared to scroll through the previous text messages haha...I’m not looking forward to going to work today. I can just imagine the damage control...

He wasn’t sure why he sent that last bit. He supposed it really didn’t matter. He wasn’t feeling too great after pushing thought after thought, memory after memory into Ravi’s sleeping mind. Maybe he would call in sick...yeah, that would probably be the best idea...

   [Text: Jaejoong] Actually, forget work. I’m calling in sick,

   [Text: Jaejoong] Also, apologies for spamming you with texts so early in the morning. If I haven’t already woke you up, I hope you’re sleeping well. If I did wake you up, sorry, go back to sleep.