Work Text:
“It’s the fifth time—fifth time that this has happened!”
Another round of cicadas singing their little hearts out came through the phone before Hoseok could respond to Namjoon, and even then, Namjoon could tell it was with much reluctance. It might’ve been a regular occurrence that Namjoon called Hoseok whenever anything out-of-the-ordinary happened, but it was never about objects moving by itself like his entire pantry (which, to be fair, only consisted of ramyun, chips, and more ramyun) lain out on his kitchen table for him every single morning. And while the younger of the two knew how busy Hoseok could get given his new position as an actual police officer, Namjoon had strategically planned the call to be during his lunch break where he didn’t have to be out patrolling and stopping the thief around the corner from stealing from the corner shop again.
However, this time, it was about his figurines landing mysteriously on the floor. “Joon, it could’ve been the boys, too. Don’t they have a key to your studio? Maybe they’re just messing with you.”
“Like hell I would give them a key to this apartment. I don’t want a repeat of last time where I found twenty people drunk out of their minds lying in the middle of my living room.”
Hoseok sighed. “Then, I don’t know, maybe it was the wind. Look, anything could’ve knocked those things down, but I definitely don’t think it’s ghosts.”
“But, I didn’t even open the windows last night! Plus, how do you explain the food that’s always on the table every morning? Or the weird knocking sounds on my door at night when no one’s there?” Namjoon lowered his voice, somehow paranoid now more than ever as he stops pacing around his tiny space to cup the phone more towards himself. “Or that I always feel like I’m being watched?”
“Joon, you’ve been saying that since we were five.”
“This is different.” The whine in his voice was cringeworthy even to himself, but Namjoon was desperate. He needed anything to explain the bizarre behavior of his new place. Even aliens would freak him out less than the invisible dead.
There was some rustling heard through the speaker (along with another sigh) before Hoseok said anything else. “Alright, alright, I’ll bite. But, what are you going to do about this ‘ghostly apparition’ that keeps messing with your stuff?”
“Come to my apartment tomorrow night and check it out for yourself. I’m going to invite the other guys over, too, just to chill, so this could be our best opportunity to prove that I’m not going crazy and that this is actually happening. Didn’t you say you could somehow sense supernatural beings?”
Hoseok scoffed. “That was just a rumor my mom started about me so people would stop teasing me back in elementary school.”
“Then, what about last year at the Halloween party?”
A chair creaked violently on Hoseok’s side, probably from straightening up a little too fast from what Namjoon could imagine. “I told you not to bring that up. How do you even remember?”
“What do you mean, ‘how do I remember’? It was last year.”
“Yeah, and you were drunk off your ass.”
“Seok, please,” Namjoon rubbed at his temples. He thought he was being impossible, but Hoseok was beating him at his own game. “Are you gonna help me or not?”
“Fine.” A breath of relief left Namjoon’s lips as another exhausted sigh left Hoseok’s. “But, you can’t say a thing to the other guys about this.”
His chapped lips curved into a smile, the little dips in his cheeks showing ever so slightly. “My lips are sealed.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Ever since Namjoon moved into his new studio apartment, he knew something was off since the very first day. Even as he and the boys, Jimin and Taehyung, helped him bring up his bigger furniture up the three, creaky staircases, things were not quite right.
“Hey, Tae.”
“Hm?” Taehyung strolled in with a cardboard box labeled ‘books’, not looking directly at Namjoon but at the spot he was pointing at.
“Did you move that?”
Taehyung took a good look at the other box of books sitting at Namjoon’s feet before shaking his head. “I don’t even remember where I put it at first.”
Namjoon stared at the box for a beat longer before shrugging and nudging it against the wall with the other unloaded boxes, all of which were stacked up higher than he was.
But as he fell asleep that night on the uncomfortable sofa he doubled as a bed, there was an out-of-place cold breeze that brushed past him. Each night, his dreams got more vivid—more colorful and vibrant than the one before. They were always centered around a kid who hung around his family and friends in different areas that obviously held a lot of sentimental value, but tonight was different.
In this dream, Namjoon knew he was dreaming.
And unlike most of his rare lucid dreams, he wasn’t himself, and he couldn’t completely control the body he was in. Instead, he was a gaunt-looking man, much shorter and skinnier than he was. With sunken-in eyes and deathly pale skin matching the bleached strands on his head, Namjoon wasn’t sure when this man had last seen the outdoors and a proper meal. Behind him in the mirror he was currently looking at, he could see a multitude of music equipment, and a small leather couch, black and dusty and almost as sunken in as the man’s eyes. There was no mattress, and in place there were high-end monitors and more equipment sitting on a large wooden desk finished with a matte black (in fact, most if not all of the studio was covered in items on the darker side of the spectrum).
When the man started to step back from the mirror and towards the kitchenette with a sigh, Namjoon’s heart almost stopped. It was all too familiar, the layout of the studio eerily the same as his current one. The landlord never informed him about the past tenant and what had happened to them, but then again, the lady in charge wasn’t very helpful to begin with. He just knew he was desperate for a place that would fit his budget and be close to the company he would soon start working at, and she was just interested in selling it as soon as possible. But now that he thought back to it, it did seem a little strange how fast she had made him go through the paperwork once he had said ‘yes’ to the place.
His hand—no, the scrawny man’s hand—reached out for a worn out water bottle filled to the brim in the nearly empty fridge and continued on past to pick up a backpack. Inside, Namjoon could see a laptop and a mess of papers stuffed in between folders and notebooks as the man zipped everything up, sticking his water bottle on the side before heaving the whole bag on his shoulders. Before he could close the bag, however, he did notice the man’s nametag brazened on a lanyard stuck deep within the recesses of the bag.
Min Yoongi.
His feet led him to the door of the studio and outside into the dingy halls and flickering lights of the building. Namjoon could move his hands a bit, moving them alongside Yoongi’s body, but it was as if he was living through an experience. A vivid memory of sorts. So as Yoongi jogged down the stairs and out the building, he couldn’t help but feel trapped in a memory that he didn’t belong in.
As Namjoon tried to wake up and snap out of this reality, Yoongi moved through his day methodically. He bought the darkest blend of coffee from the shop next door, went into a bus that took them to the inside of Seoul, and right in front of the same building that Namjoon was now working for: Big Hit Entertainment. His heart dropped and he slowly started to put the pieces together of who Yoongi really was.
“Ah, you’re at that rookie’s desk from two years ago.” A coworker pointed out to Namjoon as he sat down at his desk.
“Oh, yeah.” Another girl joined them, a few inches taller than the first girl (Hyolyn, if he remembered correctly) that directed him to his new workspace. She tossed a folder on to his desk before looking at the two of them. “Wasn’t he the one that saved all those people?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Hyolyn’s eyes widened almost comically. “Wait, didn’t he-”
But before Namjoon could ponder on it any longer, a dark, hooded figure with a cap covering his face stepped in hurriedly, forcing the doors behind him to close.
“Lock all the doors! Now!” The figure demanded, aiming his gun at the bus driver and hastily at the rest of the passengers who attempted to get out amidst the screaming and chaos. Any thought of getting out this dream—no, nightmare—was now tossed out and all Namjoon could think of was how he would survive this. How Yoongi would survive this.
“Who do you-“ The bus driver started, but then the gun was pressed against his temple and he immediately clammed up.
“If you don’t want a bullet through your head,” The figure spit out, first at the driver and then at the rest of them, “then you better cooperate. Now, lock the doors and drive.”
The driver complied and took off without uttering another word, following the directions that were spat at him.
“What the hell?” Namjoon felt Yoongi mutter under his breath. There was something ticking in Yoongi’s mind, but he couldn’t tell as his eyes darted from the window to his left and the chaos on his right. Screams around them amplified with each and every step the figure took, aiming what seemed like a pistol at everyone and then back at the bus driver. He looked out of breath, but built enough to be able to fight even without guns. If Namjoon was in Yoongi’s position, he would’ve probably already sent his final farewells to his friends and family all whilst nearly wetting his pants.
But, whoever this Yoongi guy was seemed to be stronger than he looked (at least emotionally). In a matter of moments, Yoongi had already pulled out his phone and was typing something along the lines of ‘call the police and track me down’ to someone named ‘Hyung’ only. Before he could say anything else though, a shadow fell upon them.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The captor was now a mere foot away, staring down Yoongi from below his cap with narrowed eyes. From what Namjoon could see, he had two large scars running diagonally across his face in a parallel manner, pupils blown out with his lips paper white. Every time the bus took even the slightest of turns, the man swayed on his feet.
He’s not sober, Namjoon thought to himself, and then in some hope to Yoongi who seemed unfazed by the man. “Saying goodbye to a friend. Do you want to see for yourself?”
If Namjoon could, he would throw Yoongi off the bus for even suggesting something as crazy as this, but judging by how drugged their captor looked, it probably wouldn’t look like much to him. Their captor probably thought the same, too, as he squinted at the brightly lit phone screen (a ploy on Yoongi’s side to probably distract from the actual text on the screen) before shaking his head. “You better be, because all of you will be dead by the time we get to our destination.”
Namjoon could almost laugh. Not only was he in an actual event that happened in someone else’s body that happened to work at the same exact place at the same exact desk and happened to live in the same damn apartment as he did, but he also had the honor to see them die. Wonderful.
Time ticks by slowly, and every few minutes, Yoongi glances back at his phone and at the three doors located on the sides of the bus. The captor paced back and forth for the first hour, taunting and kicking at people. The next hour, he spent checking the back window for something. At first, Namjoon assumed it was for any police chasing them down, but after a while of contemplating, he was soon aware that the guy was running from another threat. But, who would compel someone to take a whole bus hostage outside of Seoul and to-
Incheon. He felt Yoongi’s eyes widen as they passed the sign for the international airport, now only a few miles away. Whoever this guy was, he was escaping from an influential person with enough power to drive him out of the country.
But before Namjoon could think of any suspects, sirens in the distance started to close in. His head snapped down to see that in a matter of moments, Yoongi’s hyung had left him five missed calls and dozens of messages with questions as to what was wrong and why he wasn’t picking up. Yoongi’s fingers had only tapped the passcode in when a scream from the front of the bus caught his attention.
“Which one of you bastards called the police? Huh?!” In their captor’s hands was a young girl, looking somewhere within her early twenties, pulling at her hair with such force while holding his gun to the side of her head. Sobs poured out of her mouth as Yoongi froze, gripping the seat.
“Fine. If none of you want to confess, guess I’ll have to start the killing early.” He pulled back the hammer of the gun when Yoongi lunged up and Namjoon felt his heart drop.
“No!” The captor glanced up at Yoongi, a slight smirk playing on his lips that Namjoon wanted to punch right off. “It was me. Let her go and take me instead.”
There is a telltale moment of appraisal between the two, the captor sizing up Yoongi’s scrawny features, and Yoongi staring at the hand that gripped the pistol. Even if their captor wasn’t sober, he was armed unlike the rest of them. And as far as Namjoon could tell, none of them knew how to disarm a six foot tall man. Despite the intimidating aura the man gave off, deep enough to cascade into Namjoon’s core, Yoongi remained unafraid. Calm, even.
But, Namjoon quickly realized that it wasn’t because he actually was calm—it was because the captor was actually considering taking the life in front of him away.
“Look,” Yoongi said apprehensively, hands still in the air. “You can do whatever you want with me. They’re tracking my phone right now, so you can take it and throw it off the bus or whatever. Just let the girl go.”
“You even got them to track you, huh?” The captor chuckled, or at least what seemed like it. It resonated between the cries of a dying whale and a chain smoker’s wheeze (if that even made any sense). “Well, I’ll have to punish you then.”
“No!”
Everything that happened afterwards was a blur: his finger on the trigger tightened, Yoongi attempted to push the sobbing girl away, and blood. It splattered everywhere, all over the two men, and the once shrill scream of the young woman subsided all at once.
“No,” Yoongi whispered somewhere amongst the ringing in his ears from the shot and the screaming behind them. He fell on his knees and held the girl up, now lifeless with a bullet through head. “No, no, no.”
Of all the moments Namjoon would even think to imagine, this was far from one. He knew he of the stories Hoseok had told him while about certain hit-and-run cases, but never had he thought that he’d witness something as horrifying as murder. He never thought he’d be the cause of it.
No, he couldn’t think like that. It wasn’t his or Yoongi’s fault. The police would have had found out by now if there was another suspect chasing after the drugged up man, and definitely by reports of people calling in, wondering where their scheduled bus was. One way or another, they were going to die. Yoongi was going to die.
And all Namjoon could do was watch.
He watched as the captor stood above them, laughed and laughed like he had cracked the greatest joke. Panic rose up from the pits of his stomach all the way up to his throat as he could almost feel Yoongi’s blood boil.
“You!” Yoongi exclaimed as he lunged at the hooded man, throwing a couple of punches in his face before being thrown off back where the girl’s body was now. Namjoon was taken aback by the sudden show of strength on Yoongi’s side, but then again, he had no idea who the guy even was. All he knew was that he had to get out before he could witness himself die in someone else’s body.
Yoongi, however, had different plans. Taken over by pure anger, he threw himself against the man who was more than happy to retaliate back. Blood trickled down both of their faces, bruises already starting to form. The gun, though, was no longer in the man’s hand, but rather near the foot of the driver.
Yoongi’s eyes widened as he held the murderer in a chokehold, eyeing the distance between them and the pistol. He pulled them down to the floor and tried to crawl as far back as he could away from the weapon. “Stop the bus and get everyone off while you can!”
The driver looked in the rearview mirror and then down at his feet. As soon as the realization sunk in, his chubby hands swiftly swerved the bus to the side of the bridge they were crossing and unlocked all the doors. A strangled ‘no’ left the captor’s mouth, but it was fruitless as everyone filed out.
The last to leave was the driver himself, making sure everyone got out safely and gasping when he saw the body of the girl. His eyes met with Yoongi’s momentarily before scrambling around to find what Namjoon could only presume to be rope of some sorts to tie the bastard down.
“No, you should leave.” Yoongi said abruptly. He was shaking from trying to get the bigger man to stop squirming in his arms. “Don’t worry about me.”
He hesitated before nodding, looking behind them before at Yoongi. “The police are on their way. Just hold on for a bit.”
Yoongi nodded. “Thanks. Just make sure the others are safe.”
As soon as the bus driver got out and closed the doors, ensuring that the captor wouldn’t escape, Yoongi felt his arms loosen and the man leap out towards the stray pistol still laying on the floor. Namjoon could almost laugh again. Why didn’t anyone think of picking up the damn gun while they were leaving?
He grabbed Yoongi by the collar and brought him up to his feet just as the police cars rounded on to them. From their view, there were only three, two of which were in the front. This time, Yoongi was held at gunpoint as some sort of bargain with the police officers coming out of their cars and pointing their own weapons at the criminal. On the other hand, the criminal grabbed the speakerphone and projected it to be heard from the outside of the bus.
“Put your weapons down and I’ll let him go.” He demanded, and the officers looked around at each other before lowering them—all except one. With disheveled hair that covered his eyes and an intricate badge indicating that he was in charge of all the officers putting down their guns, the chief smirked and strolled closer. Namjoon heard something clatter to the floor and looked down to see the speakerphone hanging loose by its cord. The pistol to his head was gradually lowered, and Namjoon could hear the man staggering back. Yoongi looked between the officer strolling up to the front of the bus and the captor curiously, then at the locked door. The officers behind the senior officer looked genuinely confused as well.
“You thought you would get away this so easily, huh?” The senior officer spoke, muted by the slightest with the window in between them, and pointed his glock at the man behind Yoongi. Namjoon could feel his chest ease because finally, they were being saved and he could get out this godforsaken nightmare-
Two shots rang out, splitting the windshield in front of them, and Namjoon was immediately plunged into darkness.
◊ ◊ ◊
Reality hits Namjoon like a thundering tide of water, and he snaps up on the sofa in cold sweat. His blanket strewn half on the floor and partially on his legs, plush toys that were neatly put at his feet kicked far, far away, and mind wandering to a thousand different things before coming to one person: Yoongi.
He glanced up at his kitchenette, the same one in the dream, and found a silhouette instead hovering above his kitchen table, messing with the items in his pantry once more. Slowly yet carefully (though he had no idea why he was being so cautious now of all times), he cast his ridiculously printed blanket to the side and inched forward. Whoever the silhouette was (which Namjoon had a good idea who it was by now) stayed facing away from him, searching through the pantry for seemingly something specific. Namjoon wasn't going to fight Yoongi, no, but he had to figure out what his full background was-why he was still here after two years.
Namjoon took one more step before halting before the table. "Yoongi?"
The silhouette paused, caught frozen with a box of cereal Namjoon was sure wasn't his. Nearly translucent, Yoongi was most definitely not solid nor human anymore. However, he somehow picked up and moved all his ramyun and chips and now cereal to the table despite being nothing but air. In the end, it all came down to how if that vivid dream had actually in some weird sense happened, it meant that Min Yoongi was-
"Ah," Yoongi started, turning his body and attention towards the only human in the house. It was almost comically ridiculous how slow he turned considering Namjoon didn't have anything on hand to make him go away. "So, it worked."
If the ghost meant scaring the living hell out of him, then yes, it worked. He was thoroughly spooked for the rest of his life. But, Namjoon had no idea what he was talking about as he raised an eyebrow at Yoongi. "What? That nightmare?"
Yoongi nodded, gesturing towards the table in front of them. The letters 'SEN' were spelled out in what looked vaguely like ramyun powder (how in the world was he supposed to eat that packet now). "So, spoiler alert if you didn't get it, I died because of some asshole officer that unexpectedly killed me and that dude that was terrorizing the bus. I was trying to spell out the position he was in, but I ran out of powder."
"Woah, wait, hold on." It was way too early in the morning for this especially since the sun wasn't even up, only peeking out from the horizon from what Namjoon could tell from his window, and all of this-whatever this was-was too overwhelming. The most complicated issue he had to ever solve since he had gotten the studio was trying to get his team leader's ten year old laptop to boot up. This murder dream stuff (and a whole ghost) was beyond his imagination. "Aren't you a ghost? How can I see you now?"
Yoongi shrugged, leaning against the counter as if he wasn't immaterial. "I don't know, probably because I put those memories in your head. You can probably recognize me and anyone else in that dream that may or may not have died."
Namjoon scoffed. None of this made sense. No matter how much he tried to wrap his brain around all of the information he was given in the past six hours, Namjoon couldn't comprehend whether he was going insane from stress and lack of sleep, or if this was actually happening. He knew in some weird way that the supernatural in some shape or form were real (though, it might've only been because his mother tried to scare him when he was young with threats that they would take him away if he didn't get right back to sleep), but he didn't expect to come face-to-face with a ghost living in his studio for some godforsaken reason.
"Why me?" He finally said after trying to figure out if Yoongi was serious or not. Of all people, Namjoon would think he would be the worst to call for help considering his luck.
"Well, I can't exactly let anyone else know because I'm stuck in this apartment. If I could go outside, I would have let someone know long ago."
Namjoon frowned, his hands on his hips. "But, you didn't die here. You died on that bus, didn't you?"
"I'm just as confused as you are," Yoongi explained, walking up to the table that separated them, "but I really need your help before this case closes forever."
Apparently, the officer that shot him and the captor was of high ranking, and even though Yoongi thought he was of a senior rank, he didn't know for sure. He didn't have his name on his lapel, so Yoongi had no lead as to who he could have been. However, he remembered the exact features of the man that had them all hostage.
"So, if I can figure out who he is, I can probably narrow down who did in the precinct." They were both sitting at the table now, cleaning up the mess Yoongi had made as Namjoon had to pause and look in awe at how Yoongi's powers worked. Since Yoongi wasn't exactly in a physical form anymore, he couldn't grab anything with his bare hands. Instead, he could make things float and gravitate in air through his abilities as a Class A ghost.
"I still can't believe there are different ranks for ghosts, too." Namjoon said for perhaps the tenth time as he watched the ramyun powder float to his trash can.
Yoongi smirked. "Me neither, but apparently based on how you lived your life up until the very last moments, you get on this weird system and somehow I'm at the top."
"Well, you did save a whole bunch of people." Namjoon pointed out, sipping at his water.
"Yeah." Yoongi's face darkened. "All except for one."
Namjoon put down his glass and looked at Yoongi beyond the fact that he was currently talking to the dead. There was regret and guilt written all over his face despite his sacrifice, and Namjoon could only think of one reason why. "Are you talking about the girl? But, that wasn't your fault."
"But, it was! If I had never texted my friend, then she wouldn't have died."
In some form of comfort, Namjoon reached out his hand to hold Yoongi's, but only felt his hand pass through what felt like frigid air. He regretted it immediately when he saw Yoongi's face fall even more. "But, you had to stop the bus somehow before the guy got away. Besides, he could have killed anyone else in the meantime, and who knows what he would have done to you guys once he reached the airport."
Yoongi bit his lip, hands wound together as he rolled his thumbs around in thought, before responding softly. "I guess, but I still have to do something about it. I have to make her death not seem fruitless." His eyes hardened as he glared at the table. "I have to avenge her death."
In some way, Namjoon understood Yoongi. He wouldn't be at peace with himself either if things had ended the way they did, and in some crazy way, he wanted to help. He didn't know how yet, but he knew he had Hoseok who was currently in the police task force, along with Taehyung who was a computer whiz and knew how to find anything and everything at his will. Jimin knew almost everyone in town because of his social skills, so all in all, he could find out who killed Yoongi and the innocent girl.
The problem was that he didn't know how deep Namjoon would have to go and what kind of trouble he would get himself into trying to help a ghost get his vengeance, but he knew that from what little he knew about Yoongi, he was desperate. He couldn't leave anyone, ghost or no ghost, who needed help behind, pretend it was okay and move on with his life. No, Namjoon was better than that.
With all the confidence he could muster up, Namjoon stood up from his seat and nodded. "Okay, I'll help you."