As if trying to minimize his surface area to improve evasiveness, Mikhail withdrew his knees into the oversized tee he was wearing. Then, looking across the room at Gabriel, he flashed his teeth in a submissive smile and said, “Oh, it’s Mr. Gabriel, sir. What a surprise.”

“In fact, it’s not all that surprising, Little Mikhail,” Gabriel replied coldly. There was no denying it—the ex-angel’s glowing amber eyes were definitely, unmistakably, irretrievably trained on Mikhail’s jugular. Gabriel took a step forward, dragging his iron chains across the carpet, and continued, “After you made off with my halo like a thief, I turned into a wandering ghost. Can you guess why I’m here now?”

Mikhail: “To… um… haunt me?”

Step.

Mikhail: “Ahh… I mean, to have a civil chat?”

Step.

Mikhail: (Gulp.)

System, wake the fuck up! I’m going to be murdered, do something!!!

The sound of chains dragging finally came to a halt.

“This is a dream. The System cannot hear you. Besides, what can you possibly do with a balance of 0KP?” Gabriel was standing directly at Mikhail’s bedside. He flicked the golden halo atop Mikhail’s head with a fingernail, producing a reverberating ting. “In any case, I’m here on business. Regarding the Guardian Angel System, you can keep it. I’ve since accepted a new job with better benefits.” 

Mikhail slowly cracked his eyes open. At eye-level, there was a lanyard hanging off Gabriel’s neck with an ID card dangling off the end. The ID card included a photograph of a smiling Gabriel taken from the shoulders up, and at the bottom read: 

GABRIEL SONG

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST - FTE 1.0

“Oh. Congratulations.” Realizing that he was out of danger, Mikhail began to calm down. He uncurled from his defensive ball and said, “I guess you’re going to show me a nice memory from my past now? If you don’t mind, I’ll freshen up before we go. We can head out in thirty or so, does that sound good?” 

Gabriel: “…”

Just like in the movies, completely and utterly against his will—as per holiday tradition—Mikhail was whisked off his feet and pulled out the open window kicking and screaming.

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They flew two decades into the past, coming to land in the middle of a bustling mall. The ceiling was decorated with hanging garlands and baubles, signifying that it was sometime during the Christmas season. Mikhail was still wearing only his tighty-whities and an oversized tee, which he tugged at to cover his crotch in vain. 

Gabriel pointed to a small arcade erected at the center of the mall. “I don’t suppose you’re curious where that 6KP you started off with came from?”

I don’t suppose you could have let me put on fucking pants before dragging me here?!

As Mikhail begrudgingly trailed after Gabriel, the crowd phased through them as if they were merely ghosts. After all, this was a vision of the past. 

The two came to a halt in front of a crane machine. A dark-haired boy probably about five years old was staring with his face smooshed against the glass window. He wore semi-formal attire, his glossy hair parted straight down the middle, and was ogling a smiling bee plushie. 

Standing beside Gabriel, Mikhail winced. “Oh, I remember this…”

Out of the blue, an older child walked up to the dark-haired boy. This child had a carefree smile, brown wavy hair, and was dressed in a garish pink sweater—who else could it be but an eight-year-old Mikhail?

“Hey, you. What are you staring at the game for? Just play it already,” eight-year-old Mikhail said, poking the younger boy’s arm. 

The younger boy didn’t peel his face off the glass window. “The bee…”

Indeed, it didn’t need to be said. Said bee plushie was lying in a suboptimal position under a larger duck plushie. The chances of it being won by someone with average skills were less than 0.0000001%. 

Eight-year-old Mikhail pulled out two wads of cash from his sweater pockets. 

That’s right! His father had unexpectedly remembered that he had a good-for-nothing son still in elementary school, and had fobbed him off—ahem, lovingly handed him five hundred dollars as a gift for the holiday season. 

Suffice to say, eight-year-old Mikhail blew through half of his good fortune on this very claw machine.

It took twenty minutes for eight-year-old Mikhail to successfully capture the bee plushie with the claw. It dropped into the receptacle soundlessly, and eight-year-old Mikhail handed it over to the younger boy.

The younger boy accepted this gift. He put the bee plushie to his nose and inhaled deeply. 

Little Mikhail: “…Okay well. I’m gonna go now—”

Without warning, the younger boy sprang. He snatched eight-year-old Mikhail’s hand, opened his mouth, and sank his teeth into eight-year-old Mikhail’s wrist. Eight-year-old Mikhail screamed bloody murder, but it was impossible to shake off the younger boy, whose bite strength apparently rivaled that of a juvenile dingo. 

Five minutes later, a paramedic was called by a concerned passerby, and eight-year-old Mikhail was wheeled off on a stretcher.  

The adult Mikhail, itching the teeth-mark scar on his wrist: “…”

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

“So you’re telling me that that,” Mikhail aggressively pointed to the younger boy happily skipping off with the bee plushie, “was the only time I was ever nice to someone in my whole damn life? I call bullshit! I petted dogs on the street, I smiled at babies, I paid my taxes!”

“Everyone pets dogs and smiles at babies. You don’t get karma points for that. As for that tax evasion scandal—”

“Rigged!” Mikhail screamed, foaming at the mouth. “Rigged, it’s fucking rigged!”

“In any case,” Gabriel said, “We’re not done yet. Keep watching.” 

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

Mikhail begrudgingly followed after Gabriel who, in turn, trailed after the feral five-year-old. The happy child was waddling towards a high-end perfume store as if guided by an internal compass. There, a man and women dressed in elegant attire, their ageless faces practically air-brushed, were conversing with a retail assistant. 

The five-year-old, carrying his bee plushie, walked over and tugged the woman’s red dress and said, “Mama.”

The woman flicked the young boy’s hand off as if he were a bothersome fly. She glanced down out of the corner of her eye with disdain. Then, noticing the bee plushie in the boy’s hands, she asked venomously, “Er-zi, where did you get that?”

The man, who must have been the young boy’s father, grunted, “Probably stole it from another kid again. You remember that time with the neighbor—”

“Ai, don’t remind me. What an embarrassment.”

With long, talon-like nails, the woman heartlessly plucked the bee plushie out of her son’s hands. She slid it across the counter towards the retail assistant, along with a crisp hundred-dollar bill. After plastering on a fake smile, in a dripping voice she asked, “Sir, would you kindly return this toy to your establishment’s lost and found receptacle? The rude little beast must have harassed some poor child—”

"Rude little beast?" No wonder he bites! You treat him worse than a dog! 

Listening to the two pathetic-excuses-for-parents speaking callously about their own flesh and blood, the adult Mikhail felt his blood boil. He tightened his hand into a fist and, before Gabriel could stop him, made a beeline for the perfume shop. Dream sequence or not—wearing only tighty-whities or not—he was ready to give these two a piece of his mind. 

He slowed in his tracks when a shrill voice from behind reverberated like a sonic boom: 

“You fuck-face bitches! Give that back to him!”

Adult Mikhail turned his head—to find his eight-year-old self similarly stomping over. 

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

His exuberant younger self, having bounced back from his severe injury, must have escaped from the paramedics before he could be whisked away to a hospital. The sleeve of his pink sweater was rolled up, and the spot where his right wrist had minutes ago been bitten was now bandaged in gauze. His hand was balled-up in a fist, brown eyes flaming with perceived injustice—a mirror image of the adult Mikhail. 

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Eight-year-old Mikhail strode up to the woman in the red dress…

And kicked her straight in the shin! 

The woman let out a shriek. Her stiff-faced husband turned to little Mikhail and was about to unleash a stern reprimanding, when little Mikhail wound his foot back a second time…

And kicked him straight in the shin!

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

The elegantly-dressed man and woman proceeded to clutch their shins, inelegantly sinking to the floor in a heap of pain.

As for the five-year-old boy who had watched the whole thing unfold, he blinked at his brave, if a bit deranged rescuer. He didn’t smile. His face was totally devoid of emotion—save for his eyes twinkling like two stars.  

I don’t remember this at all, mused the adult Mikhail. 

He was impressed to watch his younger self, displaying an athleticism that had long-since abandoned him, clambering hand over foot onto the perfume store’s glass countertop. The bee plushie got roughly ripped out of the retail assistant’s hands. Then, before the boy’s parents could recover from the shock of being cussed out and assaulted by a minor, eight-year-old Mikhail snatched their son’s hand and ran away with him. 

Adult Mikhail’s heart swelled. 

The perfect heartwarming rescue! Fitting for a Christmas-themed PSA on child neglect! 

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

The two kids didn’t go far. Adult Mikhail and Gabriel caught up with them around the corner, hiding behind one of the mall’s silver trash cans. 

Eight-year-old Mikhail was stuffing the bee plushie down the back of the other kid’s dress pants, saying, “Trust me, they won’t find it if you hide it like this. I do it all the time. If they ask, just say you pooped your pants. After you get home, you gotta hide it, okay?” 

The five-year-old kid only stared back vacantly. There was no confirmation he was retaining any of these instructions. 

Eight-year-old Mikhail facepalmed. His thoughts were written all over his face: This kid is hopeless! 

As a last resort, he grabbed the younger boy’s shoulders and made strong eye contact to get his point across: “Listen. Your parents are just fuck-face bitches. Don’t worry about them. Even if they throw away all your toys, when you get older, you just have to make a TON of money. When that happens, you can have everything you want.”

There came the sound of adult footsteps approaching. The five-year-old boy’s eyes fell to the older boy’s bandaged wrist, the very spot he had sunk his teeth into. He lifted a hand. 

Slowly, gently, he wrapped his palm around the white bandage. 

“Well, gotta go! Bye!” Eight-year-old Mikhail grinned. He tousled the younger boy’s hair, messing up the perfect part down the middle, and ran off. 

The memory faded into smoke, leaving Gabriel and twenty-eight-year-old Mikhail back in the bedroom at Shen Dan’s house.

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

Mikhail was stunned into silence.

Gabriel, reading his shocked facial expression, smiled to himself in satisfaction. “It seems there are some things you have forgotten about. How do you feel—”

Mikhail: “6KP for that?! Just 6KP? Did you see how selfless I was back there! I rescued that poor kid from his demon parents! Goddamn it, that should have been worth at least a few hundred points! Fucking rip-off!!!!”

Gabriel: “…”

The ex-angel facepalmed. His thoughts were written all over his face: This person is hopeless!