Chapter Text
Jeongguk wakes up and immediately felt like something has gone terribly wrong during the six hours that he has slept. To be fair, he had a really long day at work, like the usual, so he ended up going home really really late. And when he got home, he didn't- or couldn't- immediately go to sleep. His OCD won't let him, even if it's past his supposed bed time. So yup, he has a long night.
But that's beside the point. He is used to waking up all alone. So seeing another figure, an unfamiliar one, standing meters away from him is crazy.
Why exactly?
Because there’s a man wearing all black sitting on the couch across his bed eating a red apple casually like he has not just materialized out of thin air in his room. Jeongguk clearly remembers that this man wasn’t here last night.
He looks at the man with utter confusion, big doe eyes blinking as he meets the other's cold ones.
So how did he end up there? he asks himself.
He was about to ask out loud when he got interrupted.
“To answer your question Jeongguk, I’m being sent here to take your breath away. Literally. I’m your angel of death, for lack of better words, although I really hate to be called that because angels just seem iffy to me. So yeah, to put it simply, you’re gonna die. And I'll be there to make sure you do.”
For a second, Jeongguk thinks that this is some sort of a sick joke. Who the hell is this guy? Why is he telling him that he will die like it's an easy-peasy process?
You must be kidding me!
Well, that is until the mind-reading angel proves him wrong.
“Oh no no no darling, this isn’t a joke. I am not a joke, and I will be seriously offended if you think of me that way. Anyway, pardon my lack of manners. Hi Jeongguk, I go by the name of V.”
And to be honest, Jeongguk doesn’t see how learning the angel’s name will help him.
Jeongguk finds himself standing near his kitchen, a bowl of oats and cereals, and a fruit juice waiting to be placed on his table. But he couldn't even eat or drink. It's been half an hour since he was awake and he is still trying to grasp the situation.
There's a man inside my apartment and goes by the name V, and says he will.. take my life away. I am gonna die. Die. Like I will be gone. From this world. Permanently.
He looks at V and takes a deep breath.
“So basically I’m gonna-”
V annoyingly grunts and rolls his eyes. “Die? Yes. As I have told you twice since we met.”
“Sorry, I know you can read my mind but can you not-”
The words made V even more irritated. “I can’t help it, Jeongguk, I have to finish your sentences because you seem to be having this peculiar trouble to do so.”
Jeongguk runs his fingers through his curly raven locks and leans onto the kitchen table for support. Because let's be real: who wouldn’t have weak knees upon learning that you’re going to die?
His head is pounding and it doesn’t even have anything to do with the fact that he stayed awake late last night to finish the report his boss had asked him to write. Now that this.. angel has come unannounced to throw the fact that he’s going to die soon, what is he going to do with the report? Is it even worth it to take a shower and go to work and hand the report that his boss most likely will yell at him for because.. Well, he’s going to die right?
Jeongguk smiles bitterly to himself as he realizes that the first thing he thinks about upon knowing he’s going to die is his job. His brother is right, his ex-girlfriend is right, his best friend Namjoon is right. The name Jeon Jeongguk should be in the dictionary as one of the many synonyms of the word workaholic. Maybe that’s what’s going to kill him, Jeongguk thinks, maybe there is such thing as working yourself to death, and that Jeongguk will be the true definition for it.
His train of thoughts got interrupted again.
“Honestly, you’re not the first one thinking about a job when I came and told them the exact same thing I've just told you. And honestly? I still can’t understand why," V began rambling, irritation at the human can be clearly detected. "I mean, if it were me and some fucked up nut job came out of nowhere and tell me I’m gonna die, I’ll drop down to my knees and ask my good Lord to forgive me for every single time I curse at my mother or for the girls I slept with and never call back. What’s with you people and your sad excuse of a job, really?”
The nonchalant tone of voice the angel (Jeongguk can’t seem to find any other word to address V other than that) carries on as he rants about what Jeongguk’s thinking about confuses him for a little bit. It’s hard enough to process the information that V just pretty much dumps on him but to see the angel acting this way? Let’s just say it gets even harder to process whatever it is coming towards Jeongguk at this moment, including the slap V just gives on the back of his head.
“Ouch, what’s that for?” Jeongguk yelps in pain. "You already told me that I am gonna die and I am having a damn hard time processing this, and suddenly you're hitting me?"
V rolls his eyes for the nth time. “Jeongguk, you do know I know exactly what you’re thinking about right? Think of me as a joke one more time and I’m gonna give you some major ass-whooping! So out of this world, you’ll wish you’ll drop dead right now.”
Dead.
That word just brings the reality of the situation came crashing back into Jeongguk’s mind. He absent-mindedly pulls out a chair, sits on it and folds his arms on the dining table. His eyes staring blankly at the abnormally clean table. Jeongguk should know how clean it is because he cleans it five times a day. It has to be five times a day or else he won’t be able to sleep, just as how he stays awake all night to find the single missing sock from his sock drawer. Blame his OCD. Jeongguk lives by a certain set of rules, and knowing he’s going to die obstructs that rule from being carried out in a way he’s comfortable in.
“Yes, Jeongguk you can call me V, and you can ask me anything.”
The hairs at the back of Jeongguk’s neck stand upright when V says that. He knows for sure he’ll never get used to the fact that someone knows exactly what’s in his head.
“Uhm..V.. When am I.. When am I gonna.. You know? Die?”
V throws the remains of his red apple, the third one he has since he came, into the trash can and wipes his hands on his black denim pants(which made Jeongguk cringe; he is too hygienic for his own good). He sits on the table next to Jeongguk’s folded arms, a sly smirk playing on his face as he looks down at the human.
“Yeah, just the exact question I expect to come from a little control freak like you. Well, the answer to that is.." He pauses for a moment, pretends to ponder, when he actually knowws the answer. He looks back at the human being who was giving him an expectant look. "I don’t know. They send me here to claim your soul and that’s that. That’s always been the rule and no one can change that, not even someone as cute as you.”
Jeongguk cringes(and also blushes a little) at the angel’s answer to his question, torn between being bothered because of not knowing exactly when he’s going to die just destroys the rules of his life. Or even worse. Or bbecause of the fact that an angel of death sent to take his life just calls him cute. His life really can’t get much weirder than this.
And once again, his chain of thoughts got interrupted.
“Think of it this way, Jeongguk. Even if I don’t show up here today, will you be able to tell when you’re gonna die? How will you know that you’ll wake up the next day after you go to bed? How will you know that a truck won’t come out of nowhere and smack you as you cross the street? Really, let’s just leave the matter of ‘when’. ‘what’ and ‘who’ to them, alright? Just be grateful you already get the answer about the ‘how’ are you going to die, me being here takes care of that. They don’t do this to every single people, you know.”
Jeongguk's brows burrowed in confusion. “Who are these ‘they’ you keep referring to?”
V looks at him with a slight smirk on his face. “The ones you pray to every night, of course.”
“Uh.. So you mean there’s more than one?”
V just shrugs. “Well, they could be one, they could be a dozen, it all depends on how people pray to them, or her, or him. Again, depends on the people.”
Jeongguk can feel a migraine slowly building up as the world he knows suddenly becomes so obliterated beyond belief as soon as this so-called angel of death comes. Running out of questions, and at the same time overflowing with them, he stands up from his seat and walks away towards the shower, in hopes that a nice long shower can clear his head. Maybe it can wake him up and make him realize that this V guy is just a fragment of his weirdest and freakiest dream.
“You can take all day in there, Jeongguk and I’m still gonna be here once you get out,” V states with a mocking tone.
And whoop! There goes the hope.
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Jeongguk and V both enter an office, the latter looking around with a somewhat disgusted expression on his face.
“Oh my, this dull office, these white walls, these cubicles, this boredom! This is what’s gonna kill me, and maybe you too.”
“Uh… V… do you really have to…”
V stops and looks at the human, irritation clear again on his face. “Jeon Jeongguk, why does it take you forever to form a coherent sentence? My goodness, the world would be facing an Armageddon before you even finish your meager sentence! And yes, of course, I have to be around you all the time, what if they suddenly order me to finish you? I have to be on stand by!”
Jeongguk looks around his office, completely sure that someone is going to notice V screaming at him but to his surprise, everybody carries on with their document-typing, photocopying, or signing of things as if a red-haired guy who goes by the name of V doesn’t just scream bloody murder at him.
V stares at his human, annoyed over the fact that he still doesn't seem to be convinced that he is real. “When are you going to learn that you’re the only one who can see me? I thought I’ve made it pretty clear when we got here and I stick my pinky inside that guy’s nostril for five minutes and he doesn’t do anything? Jeez, I thought your speech ability is the only thing that’s going slow here.”
Jeongguk can only pout at what V says. He kind of felt.. insulted.
V has been following Jeongguk for the whole morning now, without Jeongguk even understanding why at first. When V hops on to his car as he prepares to go to work, Jeongguk has had half a mind of telling him that he couldn’t possibly take him to work, and that people will start asking questions if he shows up to work with a really gorgeous guy (as much as Jeongguk hates to admit it, because he’s a guy and he shouldn’t think that way about another male, V is indeed gorgeous with his intense eyes, plump lips and sharp nose) and all he gets is another slap to the back of his head, and so he stops himself from telling V just that. He breathes a sigh of relief once he’s completely certain that no one is going to notice V sitting on the edge of his desk. He was about to open his computer to get his shift started when-
“Hey Jeongguk, what exactly did I tell you about finishing this report on time? You’re ten minutes late in handing this report! How do you suggest for me to get it through your thick skull that when I said I want this report to be done by 9 AM, I actually mean 9 AM and not ten minutes past 9 AM!”
The sigh of relief doesn’t last long as the effeminate man that goes by the name of Park Sungyeol, or in this case Jeongguk’s boss, walks into the cubicle and throws the neatly-covered report carelessly and hitting Jeongguk square on his face. Jeongguk just swallows a lump on his throat, looks down and lets Sungyeol go on and on about him being too thick-headed to even continue living. His coworkers begin passing knowing glances at each other and whispering about the poor Jeon Jeongguk, getting his daily dose of verbal assault from Mr. Park.
It has honestly become a cycle, really. A cycle in which Jeongguk gets carried away without even having a say in it. In the morning Sungyeol would always yell at Jeongguk for a late submission of the morning’s preliminary reports. In the afternoon, it’s Jeongguk taking a lunch break for too long. In the evening, it’s Jeongguk taking too much time with his afternoon report.
In short, Jeongguk can never do anything right in front of Sungyeol. And that’s the fact that the whole office has been aware of. Or have been forced to acknowledge.
At this point V has been temporarily forgotten, and the angel doesn’t make his existence known to Jeongguk either. He just sits there at the exact same spot, witnessing everything that happens with an unreadable expression. As Sungyeol finally leaves and Jeongguk’s rapid heartbeat calms down, V finally speaks.
“You always hand that report on time. You always take exactly 30 minutes for your lunch break. You finish your report at exactly 5 PM every day." He sighs at that. "Why do you keep letting him do that to you?”
That’s the first time the angel takes a softer tone when speaking to him since he showed up.
And really, Jeongguk should be at least a little bit uplifted about it. But he just has no power to. He has totally lost the power to.
Because truth be told, V have just asked him the question he’s been asking himself, and has yet to find the answer to it himself.
- end of ch 1