the devil wears nada

nùeng.

"You made a typo."

Four year old Tine blinks at his paper, fluffed brown hair falling down in his eyes only for him to huff it back up in a poof of indignant air. His mother is smiling down at him, smile soft but Tine's child brain still interprets it as condescending. He sends her his best pout before looking back down at his expertly written letter, brows furrowing in confusion.

"It looks right to me," he mumbles while his mother chuckles, ruffling his hair affectionately before walking away.

Tine pouts once more, but continues writing:

Dear Satan, the letter begins.

Please bring me lots of presents so I can smile. I lost my stuffed buffalo and I want him back. Can you pretty please help? I would love you forever.

The best,

Tiny.

If his mother helped him write most of it, his dear Santa will never know. Nonetheless, Tine tucks it under his pillow, his mother assuring it will reach its sender, and Tine drifts off into an innocent sleep.

¶ ¶ ¶ ¶

The sun is unrelenting as it beats down on Tine's back, as if his sweating from the stress over exams wasn't enough. He's resigned to laying his forehead flat on his textbook, as if he'll somehow absorb the knowledge through some osmosis blood-brain barrier magic. When he feels a hand pat his shoulder he groans, signaling he has no intention of lifting his head from what he thinks is his going to be his final resting place.

"I don't think that method will work." It's Fong, Tine's only reasonable friend who seems to hold the braincell most of the time. At this moment, Tine is very sure he has no possession over it. He makes a noncommittal sound, followed by Fong sighing. "Maybe you should pray to some higher power, then."

Tine turns his head enough to look up at Fong with one eye, other cheek still smushed reliably on his book. "That doesn't work," he whines.

"Maybe a lower power then," Ohm chimes from where Tine just now realises is sitting across from him. When did they show up?

Even though Fong looks away, Tine does not and sees his eyes roll. "Please tell me you're being sarcastic."

Paper sticks to Tine's face as he peels himself off, and he's pretty sure he's ripped the glorious paragraph about what technically counts as first-degree murder. He idly wonders if suicide counts as he peels off the bits of paper that were resolute to hold on. Something to ask his professor, he supposes. "Maybe he has a point," Tine mumbles, not intending for anyone to hear but of course they do, and it starts a heated debate about who—of all things—has a bigger dick: the devil or Jesus. Tine decides to stay out of it.

He's sitting at his desk when he thinks about the ridiculous notion Ohm had the audacity to plant in Tine's fragile mind. The words on his computer are blurring together, and he's pretty sure the floor could crack underneath him and he'd just be grateful for finally being able to lay down. He huffs his still entirely too fluffy hair out of his face when the thought comes to him.

It started as something sincere, until he was about seven and realised his parents were just being cruel. If you had asked him, he swore he was not meaning to write to the king of hell, but the beloved fat man that squeezed down his chimney every twenty-fifth of December. The entire thing is somewhat beyond Tine now that he's twenty—his family was Buddhist, but they still adhered to Western customs. It didn't really matter to younger Tine; he liked the presents well enough.

So it started as sincere, until Tine was humiliated. He took it like a champ, though, and kept writing to Satan every Christmas, just to hold onto a shred of his dignity. It doesn't make sense, it probably diminished any dignity left floating in his veins, but it's been years since he's last wrote to the oh-beloved king of hell. Maybe his dignity has come back.

It's that precise thought that has him scrambling for paper and pencil, not surprised even in the slightest that he can't find it in the sea of utter bullshit that has become his desk. If there even is a desk left, it's only evidenced by the legs still holding fast to the ground. Eventually he finds precious paper and a beat-to-shit pencil, but it at least will serve his purposes adequately enough.   

His pencil stays hovered over the bright pink paper his mother insisted he take to college. He's pretty sure she was just tired of looking at it, and so was he, which is probably why it took so damn long to find. It's still ridiculous he's writing to Satan on pink paper, but this is Tine's life at this point, so.

Sue him.

Dear Satan,

He grimaces, cursing under his breath as he stands stomping to his bed. It really only takes one indignant stomp, which causes him to shuffle back to sit down. He groans at the paper, at the little smiling face in the top right corner. Has he really stooped this low?

It's been a while, he starts, as if Satan and him were buddies. As if Satan was real. Tine is nothing but stubborn, so he wills himself to keep writing: Sometimes I think Santa is more real than you, but some stupid friend of mine made me remember these pointless letters, so here we are. If I was gunna pretend you were real, I would also have to pretend the past letters definitely not at Christmas were genuine. Fairly heathenisitc to believe in Satan before Jesus, huh?

Tine frowns at the paper. What, and he cannot stress this enough, in the actual shit is he writing? "Shit," he spits, crumpling the paper and tossing it to his trash can. The thing is only two feet away from him, and he still manages to miss. If groaning was a catch phrase, it was quickly becoming Tine's. He ruffles his hands frustratingly through his hair, mulling over this insane idea he seems to be good at making up.

It's hours that Tine should have definitely spent studying that he continues to write drafts to the goddamn devil. By the time his clock reads four in the morning, he's settled on the best thing he could officially formulate:

Dear Satan,

Help me?