Archive of Our Own

"Here you go!" Jinwoo says, pushing a moderately large box into Jungkook's hands.

"But I don't understand, why are you giving these to me? I thought you said that they were a rare collectable or something?" He asks the collector, automatically grabbing ahold of the box even though he wasn't sure why he was receiving it.

"They are definitely rare yes, but I can't take them with me. They won't do well overseas and need to stay here in Korea." Jinwoo says, as if it made any sense and he wasn't just spouting off nonsense. Because Jungkook knew that was what it was, nonsense.

"What does that even mean, 'won't do well overseas'? Do you think that baggage would be that rough with them? I mean they are just dolls. Nothing breakable like porcelain, right?" Jungkook rambled, going off of his own assumption of what the issue was, and why Jinwoo wouldn't want to take the dolls with him to Europe.

"Yeah, they wouldn't be able to go through baggage. Well, I need to be heading off now. I still have a few things left to pack still. Please be gentle with them okay! Their names are on their boxes!" Jinwoo turns around to go ahead and head back, Jungkook switching the box to just one hand so that he could close the door. Just before it closes though, Jinwoo stops it. "Oh, and one more thing, please make sure to have them out of their box before dusk. It is super important."

"Out of the box? But I thought in order to make them valuable they had to say in the box?" Jungkook wasn't sure, he was definitely not a collector of any sorts, but he was pretty sure he had heard about that.

"Just trust me? I'm the collector here right?" And at Jungkook nods, Jinwoo continues, "Please make sure to take them out of the box before the sun sets. I also made some notes for each of them in the box that will help you out. Oh! And please, make sure to treat them, right. I know that I kind of ask this of you at the last moment, but I know that they would appreciate it." Jinwoo says.

They would appreciate it? Jungkook thinks, Is he referring to the dolls? I guess it isn't that weird. I personified my bunny plushie and gave it a name and liked to think that they had feelings and thoughts, but that was also when I was eleven. We are both twenty-three.

"Uh, right. You really don't have to worry. I'll take care of them. You know that I'm not a horrible person." Jungkook says half teasingly and half placatingly.

"I know that, and I also know that you are the worst at remembering to do things. That's the part I'm worried about. Please, take them out of the box as soon as I leave. Don't wait because I just know that you will forget. Do it for me, alright?" Jinwoo pleads, looking every bit as serious as he normally does when something is extremely important to him.

Jungkook smiles, "I promise I will." He says with a gentle voice that spook of the finality of the situation. "Now go, you don't want to be late for your flight, right? I don't want to hear you complaining about how I was the one that caused you to be late for your flight." He finishes jokingly.

Jinwoo smiles at him, before titling Jungkook's head forward to bump foreheads together. The box still in his arm starting to press and dig uncomfortably against his ribs and abdomen. "Thank you so much for doing this." He whispers, causing goosebumps to break over his skin. Before Jungkook can do or even think about formulating a thought, Jinwoo breaks the contacts and finally heads out the door with his last thanks and goodbye.

He shakes his head and closes the door. "Now, where should I put you at." He says aloud to himself, trying to figure out where to put the box of dolls. There wasn't too much space in his apartment that only housed him, but did technically have two bedrooms. "Hmm, well there is a shelf that's kind of cleaned off." He says, starting to head towards the living room, where the shelf in reference was.

He sets the box on a nearby coffee table and opens up the box to reveal....quite a bit of stuff to be honest. There were the six dolls of course, then there was also what looked like a little...play set for them? It included a couch and two chairs for them to sit on and a little toy table to place around the furniture as well. In the box was also a long page of what Jungkook assumed were the notes for taking care of the dolls correctly like Jinwoo asked.

He goes ahead and picks up the paper and sees that there is actually a lot written down. Though, he supposed that Jinwoo was fond of them even if he was given them up. Well, not "giving them up", but it still seems like a weird excuse to me to not be able to handle baggage. But whatever, I suppose just sitting them out and waiting for him to return will be easy enough. Not like the instructions can be that hard, right? Jungkook thinks. He looks down and starts to read what Jinwoo had left him.

Jungkook-ah,

I want to thank you for taking in these dolls for me--even though I'm sure I thanked you several times in person before I left. As you have already probably figured out, these dolls are very rare and special, needing a lot of love. You will soon discover what makes them so unique, and I hope that you will be as happy, excited, and accepting as I was when I first discovered their secret.

See you in about half a year,

Park Jinwoo

"Their secret?" Jungkook snorts, "You are so weird sometimes." He says to Jinwoo who is probably already back at his own home packing for his flight. Even though that it was for Jinwoo's message to him, there was more written below that, though when Jungkook sees it, he almost can't believe what he is actually seeing.

Kim Namjoon:

Age: 26 years old

Favorite Food: any kind of meat

Food Kim Namjoon won't eat: Seafood, mint chocolate

Favorite hobbies: Writing music, taking nature outings, reading books

Personality: intelligent, young at heart, clumsy, can bottle things in and put too much on his shoulders

Cool Trivia: IQ of 149 and loves to rap

Jungkook looks into the box to see a doll with a tag on it that has the name Kim Namjoon. The doll has silver-whitish hair, wearing a tan coat over a white hoodie with a pair of blue denim jeans. What? Has Jinwoo given them...personalities and everything? He's acting as if they are alive.

Kim Seokjin:

Age: 28 years old

Favorite Food: Pretty much anything

Food Kim Seokjin won't eat: garlic - due to allergies, mint choco icecream

Favorite hobbies: gaming, fishing,

Personality: funny, witty, smart, also introverted but tries to be socially confident

Cool Trivia: amazing at thinking games

Min Yoongi:

Age: 27 years old

Favorite Food: kimchi jiggae

Food Min Yoongi won't eat: n/a, eats pretty much anything

Favorite hobbies: plays guitar, piano especially to make music

Personality: acts of service type of love language

Cool Trivia: very wise and knowledgeable about a broad array of stuff

Jung Hoseok:

Age: 26 years old

Favorite Food: loves mint chocolate and kimchi

Food Jung Hoseok won't eat: does seem to be picky, but seems to eat without any complaints

Favorite hobbies: dancing, shopping

Personality: funny, acts cute but is actually very serious and quiet at times

Cool Trivia: fashionista

Park Jimin:

Age: 25 years old

Favorite Food: tonkatsu and sour things

Food Park Jimin won't eat: mushrooms, mangoes, is iffy on mint chocolate, doesn't really like seafood either

Favorite hobbies: YouTube rabbithole deepdive on animal videos

Personality: really kind person and loves to take care of others, good with words

Cool Trivia: can’t see and falls over when he laughs

Kim Taehyung:

Age: 25 years old

Favorite Food: strawberry, jeotgal

Food Kim Taehyung won't eat: spicy foods, coffee

Favorite hobbies: photography, listening to music

Personality: social butterfly even though he does a resting "bitch" face and loves his friends

Cool Trivia: loves to act

Jungkook laughs, "Wow. Okay, yeah, gave them all a little personality, huh." He says rhetorically, shaking his head. "Weird, I have to say, but I suppose it's cute in a way." He goes to look at the other dolls. The doll named Seokjin had a big mane of black hair that curled down around the base of the neck. They too also had full lips, wearing a black sweater with a white horizontal stripe in the middle, black jeans with holes in the thighs, and a tan suede jacket paired with classic converse sneakers.

The Yoongi doll had some kind of silvery-dirty blonde hair color. Dressed in a lose knitted, yellow and red sweater that he was able to see there was a black tank top showing through that was paired with black jeans and black boots that had yellow laces.

The Hoseok doll has firey red hair pulled back in a smile that looks to be causing a small dimple. The doll was dressed in a white tee shirt, blue jeans, a black jacket that had embordered different colored flowers on it, and white sneakers.

Jimin, similar to the Jin doll, had full lips and bright, bubblegum pink hair. They were in a thin, black turtleneck that was paired with a red fluffy jacket and black jeans.

The last one that was named Taehyung was in a white hoodie that had the text "Legalize me", black sweats. This one was a little different from the others since Jungkook wasn't able to see the hair color that well since there was a hat, with the bill faced backwards. He lifts up the hat curiously and see that the hair is black and curly.

He decides to go ahead and set them up on the play set pieces that was also in the box. Placing all the dolls on the sofas and the chair pieces arranging them to look natural. Once done, he looks at what he has done.  He had Namjoon, Jimin, and Jin on a couch, Taehyung and Hoseok on a loveseat, and then Yoongi leaning against the side of the loveseat. "Well, don't you guys look cosy." He says, with the half smile.

With that, he turns around and flops down on his own couch and turns on the tv. He flicks over to a documentary that was about the planet and animals. He always found documentaries so much fun, interesting, and even entertaining. He watches that for the entire hour that it lasts. He grabs some food and decides to watch another episode on the documentary series. He settles in for the night, falling asleep to the quiet hum and whirling of the fan and air conditioner.

He wakes up in the middle of the night. What had woken him up? He listens and looks around for anything out of the ordinary, but doesn't notice anything, and soon he is back asleep again.

He wakes up and starts preparing for the day, going into the kitchen and getting himself a cup of coffee. He scrambles some eggs and heats up some broth for some miso soup. Once everything is ready, he sits down and eats on the couch. He decides for breakfast he wanted to watch something else from the documentaries he watched last night. He looks through what was on Netflix and landed on a horror series called Marianne. It was in a foreign language, so he had to put on some subtitles. He finishes up his breakfast, watching the creepy, terrific vibes that the series has already set up.

After he finishes the episode and his breakfast, he gets up and drops off the dishes in the sink, rinsing them off. He was going to go take a shower when he is hit with a random urge to look at the dolls. Maybe it was because they were a new item in his home. Something that stuck out in his mind as something that isn't used to being there. Or maybe he was subconsciously curious about the note that Jinwoo had left him talking about this secret.

Either way, he decides to go ahead and walk closer towards the dolls and their setup area, but as he draws closer he feels a sharp twist of wrongness, as unease makes its way through his body. On the couch was Namjoon, Jin, and Jimin. While the love seat had Hoseok and Taehyung. However, Yoongi--who he knows for sure was leaning against the love seat last night--is no longer leaning against the furniture.

Instead, the doll is laying across Hoseok's and Taehyung's lap.

"What the fuck." He whispers out in fear. "What the fuck is going on here." No, there must be a logical explanation for this. Maybe...maybe the doll fell over from leaning and toppled onto the other's laps somehow? That's the only explanation. He reaches out and picks up the doll that was across the laps of the other two. He forces out a chuckle, "Looks like you might have fallen over, huh? Let's see if I can fix that. Want to make sure we put you where everyone can see your pretty face, right?" He rhetorically asks, even though he knows that not many people will be stepping into his home, and therefore will not actually be looking at the dolls.

This time, he decides to put bend the waist and knees of the doll and have it sitting on the play coffee table. "There. I suppose that's a little better. I definitely don't want you sitting on the floor." He says, referring to the shelf that everything was on.

This time, he decides to put bend the waist and knees of the doll and have it sitting on the play coffee table. "There. I suppose that's a little better. I definitely don't want you sitting on the floor." He says, referring to the shelf that everything was on.

He knows that the uneasiness feeling that is encasing his body is due to the fact that his brain as picked up on the difference. The human mind loves patterns very much and when a pattern is broken, it sticks out like a big red flag. He takes deep breathes to calm down his mind, knowing that the doll must have just fallen over, and that the message on the note didn’t mean anything.

He goes on with his day, taking a shower and dressed for work. On the way out, he can’t help taking one last glance over to the dolls to see that they are still in the same position. “Good.” He whispers under his breathe and closes the door behind him.

At the gym he works at as a fitness trainer, Jungkook’s day goes well and is able to forget about the weird doll incident. He gets back home and decides to heat up some left over kimchi and cook up some rice, too lazy to do anything else. While eating, he watches another couple of episodes of Marianne since it is starting to get interesting. The show was definitely amazing at doing its job setting the creepy, uneasy atmosphere. Things that wouldn’t normally cause alarm or uneasy, felt a sense of wrongness when it happened. It wasn’t jump scares or gore or anything like American horror default to. Sure, jump scares can be “scary” but that is only because of the cheap surprise value, and gore can be “horrific” but not because it is necessarily scary. Jungkook loved horror due to the vibes and atmosphere.

Soon, the sky blackened, as if it was wanting to help set the mood for Marianna as well. He didn't realize how tension he was until a giant crack of thunder made him jump almost three foot in the air. Pausing the show, he realizes that it was pouring outside as a flash of lightening lights up the room. "Holy shit." He says to himself, holding his hand over his heart as if to protect it from beating out of his chest.

Finishing up the rest of the episode he was on, he knew that he had to get ready for bed now the time was heading towards 10pm. He gets up from the couch, that had a divot hole in the form of his body. He gets to the bathroom and starts to brush his teeth, when he hears a creak in the wooden floorboards.

Immediately, his mind pops up with an image of someone stepping around his place. He feels like a hand squeezes around his heart and lungs as his entire body freezes in palpable fear. His ears perk up, trying to listen for any other sounds. He doesn't hear anything. But he's scared.

No, it must just be his mind messing with him from after watching the show. The house was just settling. Isn't that what everyone always says? That homes creaks, moans, and groans as it settles in places getting older? Honestly, it isn't that old. If he remembers correctly, the real estate owner had said that the place was built in the early 2000s.

"It's just my mind playing with me. No one is out there." He tells himself. He knew that there wasn't anything out there, but he was also still scared to leave the bathroom. The What If? , his mind was supplying. He takes a shaky breath and peaks around the doorframe to look around to the living room.

The unease starts to roll off his shoulders as he doesn't see anyone out there right away. It gives him the confidence to take an actual step out of the bathroom into the connecting hallway. With each cautious step taken, and not see anything, he feels a little more tension leave his body. He turns the light on and even though he still doesn't see anything, he doesn't feel complete relief until he checks behind every piece of furniture. He looks around and doesn't see anything out of place, which makes him feel better.

He smiles, looking over at the dolls. "False alarm, it seems." He giggles, walking closer to them. "You guys would let me know if you did see someone break in, right?" He asks them. "Protect me?" He looks at their cute smiles that were painted on their faces. He runs the tip of his finger over the dimpled face of the doll he thinks was named Namjoon. The little dip in the surface of the doll's face was fascinating. He didn't really think about it before but, maybe he has a thing for dimples.

With his heart rate finally calming down, he bids the dolls farewell for the night. "Good night. Hopefully, the demons won't kill me overnight." He jokes, and with that he finally heads to bed to fall asleep for the rest of the night without an issue.

Jungkook gets up the next day feeling…not the best. The storm ended up keeping him awake a little bit longer. Not able to comfortably fall asleep with the cracks of thunder going on around him. Finally though, he was able to fall asleep when the storm passed. Due to this, he didn’t get a good night’s rest and wakes up a little tired. Not too bad though, a little bit of tiredness doesn’t hurt anyone. He’s sure that the rest of his day will go fine and when he gets back home later that day he would be able to go to catch up on his sleep.

Turns out that he was wrong. It was actually one of the worst days he has had in a while. While the getting ready for work went wonderful, having a tasty, well balanced breakfast, everything started going to shit after that. It was honestly like a bad comedy or something.

On the way out the door, he saw a small puddle of water but didn’t think too much of it since there were water everywhere due to the storm last night. However, apparently he miscalculated and the puddle was deeper than it appeared. It ended up getting his right shoe and sock soaked. Groaning he turns around and goes back inside to switch out socks and shoes as quickly as possible. He bypasses the puddle from before, and every other puddle as best he can as he makes his way to the train station.

When he gets there, it seemed like the world was officially messing with him. The train that he took, that was always barely on time, had somehow managed to run early today. Meaning that he missed the train and is now late for work. He gets to work and receives a warning for his tardiness and is told to leave earlier in the morning if he wants to avoid any possible delays. Even if the manager was right, it was still annoying and frustrating to hear that after the morning he has had.

He starts on his usual routine, getting with his clients that their blocked off time. However, today there was a new customer that was blocked off from 3:30 – 5pm. It was a woman and from the start she had an attitude. It was very apparent that she did not want to be here from the get-go. She lets her frustration out on him and he was not having it. He lets her know politely that if she does decide to come back next time, she needs to recheck her attitude or otherwise he would not be working with her.

He was done. Once he gets back to his place, he makes sure to take off his shoes before he promptly flops onto the couch. He grabs a pillow and hugs it close to his chest, wanting to feel something. Wanting to feel as if he had someone that he could rely on, could hold close, to just....have some company.

He...really missed people. He was an introvert but he can't ignore human natural innate need to have some human contact. It was a part of the reason that he enjoyed his job as a physical fitness trainer.

He groans, turning around only to catch sight of the dolls on his shelf. As soon as the thought flashes through his mind, he feels embarrassment strike him. "I can't believe I just thought of doing that." He buries his face into the pillow. He looks back up at the dolls and gives a half teasing smile. "Can you guys believe that I had the thought of talking to you guys." He maneuvers his way until he is sitting up straighter on the couch, now having a better vantage point of the dolls.

"You guys want to hear about my day?" He giggles. Of course he is met by silence but he decides to go ahead anyway since he wanted to rant aloud to someone. If he imagined that the dolls had sentience, then it would help to make him feel like he is actually talking to someone. It was sad, no doubting that, but it was what he had to work with. "Thanks."

"So, it started off with waking up a little tired, which isn't a big deal. I mean, it happens every so often. No, it was the actual day itself. I was late for work and a new client I had today had such an attitude, I swear. She called me a meathead. A meathead that is too young to know anything about life or anything of the sort. A meathead that only cares about muscles and look buff. Can you believe that? I'm sure that she was just letting off steam, but come on! So uncalled for to bring it out on other people. Not to mention the fact that we are educated? They don't let random people just be trainers. We learn about nutrition, anatomy, everything! We have to! In order to make sure that we can care for our clients. To make sure that we don't overwork our clients. To make sure that we are able to see our clients and know what works best for them."

He takes a deep shuddering breath. God. He did not want to cry over some random lady, it wasn’t worth it. Yet he could still feel the pressure behind his eyes and in this chest. He rubs his eyes, “Ugh! I’m not crying over her. I’m not! I’m just, frustrated. I’m allowed to be upset on a bad day right? Right.” He takes another watery inhale. “I’m just tired and the things that happened today just didn’t help. I’ll go to sleep tonight, get some rest, and everything will be better. I suppose I should get some food first though.” He mumbles the last part to himself. Not that all of this rambling hasn’t been to himself, but it has definitely helped to imagine that the dolls were somehow able to understand him and providing some soothing comfort for him. “Thanks for listening to me. I feel a little better and hopefully once I eat and get some rest, I’ll be back to myself.” He gives him a half smile before turning around to head to the kitchen to dig around for some food.  

He doesn’t find much, and honestly he doesn’t feel like cooking anything. So instead, he decides to place a takeout delivery order. He doesn’t watch anything while eating, not really in the mood or able to pay attention to what is going on. He zones out, just staring out the window, not really thinking of anything. Sometimes it feels good to just not do anything, to just be a zombie and not think or worry about anything. Maybe it was a self defense mechanism, but Jungkook liked to think that it was a part of human nature just as much as wanting human company was.  

Finally he decides to call it quits for the night, feeling his eyelids droop and get heavy. His body creaks and pops as he stands up from the curled up position that he has maintained for several hours. “I’m going to bed. Night guys.” He says to the dolls over his shoulder as he heads out of the living room. He gets ready for bed and once done he crawls into bed, curling up into a ball. Finally the weight of the day, from the rough night of sleep the previous night, the frustrations from today’s events, the crying, all of it, pulls him under.  

It was a deep sleep that gave him a weird dream; where his mom petting his head, brushing his bangs off his forehead repeatedly, as she whispered “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay”. What was weird about it was the fact that her voice didn’t sound the same. The pitch was high and light, sure, but it had an almost…masculine rasp to it. When he woke up, remembering it, he thought he would be freaked out by the altercation of his mother’s voice, but somehow, he wasn’t. Maybe it was because he knew it was a dream and that his mind knew that even if it was weird, it was still just his mother comforting him like she used to when he was younger. His mind creating the dream to help with the stress and frustration from the day.  

Either way, he doesn’t think much of it and gets ready for work. It does go a lot better than yesterday. The troublesome client from yesterday came back and apologized for their attitude and they managed to move on, talk about what kind of regime and schedule they should go with, etc. He gets back home, feeling good, but just before he turns the knob to the door he hears something. He pauses, straining his ears to try to listen to what he thought he heard.

There .

It sounded like...His blood runs cold. It sounds like voices. Someone speaking. Was there...someone in his place? He didn't have anything on him to use as a protective weapon. Did he even have anything valuable enough to steal? Should he call the police? I mean, he feels like he needs some kind of confirmation before he calls them, because what if he is wrong. He didn't want to necessarily call the authorities, only to find out that there wasn't actually wrong. Maybe he just left the tv on or something.

He tries his best to slowly and quietly turn the knob and open the door, in case if someone is in there, they hopefully won't be alerted to the fact that he is home and opening the door. He manages to open the door and before entering he pauses to check to see if he hears anything.

He doesn't. So, he takes another step. He takes his first step into his home, and still not hearing anything from the initial sound, he is starting to think that maybe he misheard or something. Still be cautious, he takes his shoes off and takes another step into the quiet atmosphere.

He looks around, straining his ears again to see if he can pick up anything, even the tiniest bit of sound. Anything out of the ordinary. He doesn't. He goes further in. He doesn't hear anything or see anything. So weird. Maybe he did imagine that noise? Or maybe it was from somewhere in the distant. He looks around the apartment, still a little paranoid that something had happened.

He searches every room, going from the kitchen to the bathroom to the bedroom, until he ends back up in the living room. He didn't see anything missing or even out of pla-- except there was. One of the dolls, Namjoon, was not where he was suppose to be, wasn't even on the shelf like he was suppose to be. No, instead, the they were on the desk that the shelf was situated over.

"What..." He weakly says aloud, too scared to speak too loudly. It took all his strength to not collapse to the floor. "Wh-what are you doing off the shelf." He whispers to himself. He was terrified. He had already down a run-down of the place and made sure that no one was there. Besides the doll, everything was the same, nothing else was out of place or missing.

But someone must have been in here earlier. He hasn't touched the dolls since he first set them out, and then when he had rearranged the Yoongi doll, which was three days ago. But what would anyone want from his place? And even if there was something that someone wanted enough to break into his place, nothing was even missing. Maybe...maybe he had shown up before they were able to take whatever they were after? But...if that was the case, how did they get out of here without him noticing?

He was petrified with fear. What was he supposed to do? How was he going to sleep, knowing that someone has entered his sanctuary and could do it again at any point? What if whoever they were, was violent? He wanted to call someone, the police, but he knew he couldn't. They wouldn't be able to do anything since no one was there and nothing was missing.

What should he do? Was there even anything he could do?

He finally manages to step close to the doll, and picks them up. "Ho...how did you end up off the shelf? Want to tell me?" He gives a dry, teasing chuckle that was packed with fear and worry. "What did you see?"

Oh .

Wait, that gave him an idea. What if he put up something to watch his place. A camera. He could put a camera up and if anyone does break in, at least there would be video evidence to take down the perpetrator.

He picks the doll up and puts it down on the shelf in the same spot as before. "Don't worry guys, I'll figure this out." He says, giving a faux brave smile. He turns around and starts to plan the process out. Thankfully, due to his hobbies, he already has a camera that he can use. Now, to figure out where to put it. It probably needs to be situated close to the door in and the living room where one of the few windows is.

Without knowing what else to do, he gets started and sets the camera up to where it is pointed towards the door, capturing most of the living room and the frame of the hallway. With that done, he makes sure that it has a full battery and that it is recording. Once that is done, he grabs an overnight bag and begins to pack. There is absolutely no way that he would feel comfortable staying in this place tonight after what he knows has somehow transpired.

Once the bag is packed and he is double checked that he has his phone, charger, and computer, along with the other necessarily supplies he heads out the door heading to a hotel that is several streets over and several blocks down.

He gets there and gets a random room for the night and heads up and gets ready for the night. Even though he is away from where the situation happened and is in a more secure place, he still had trouble sleeping. All his mind could think about was that someone had someone had somehow gotten into place. He hadn't seen any sign of force entry or anything. It was also disturbing that nothing was missing and the only sign that someone had even been there was the fact that one of his dolls wasn't where it was supposed to be.

At some point he falls asleep and wakes up with the light coming through the window. Thankfully it was Sunday so he didn't have to worry about heading into work since they were closed on Sundays. He lays in bed, knowing what lies ahead of him and had anxiety building up. What if when he reviews the footage, he actually sees something. Seeing and having it confirmed that someone was in his place, it was terrifying.

Eventually he gets up and puts away everything that he had gotten out last night so that he could check out before he got charged for another day. He gets back to his home, pausing outside the door. He doesn't hear anything this time, but he isn't sure if that necessarily a good thing. He opens the door and slips off his shoes so he can make his way further into the place. He goes around like the previous night, checking every room to see if there was anything missing or out of place.

There wasn't. He thinks that makes him feel a little better, however, he knows that checking the footage is what will helped relieve the tightness in his chest.

He goes over to the camera and sees that it isn't powered off, maybe it must have run out of battery a few hours ago. Hopefully, it was on long enough to capture what needed to be captured, if there was anything.

He gets the SD card from the camera and moves over to his bedroom where he can be in a semi-enclosed space that is lockable. He makes sure that he has his computer and plugs the SD card into it so that he can pull up the recorded footage that was recorded last night.

When he starts playing the recording, he sees as his past self leaves the place around 6:30pm. He watches and nothing visible happens for several hours. It was around 10pm that he did start to notice something. On the far corner of the camera, the shelf where the dolls are housed starts to shake and vibrate before a soft glow starts up.

Jungkook felt numb. What in the fuck is going on?

He watches as the the soft glow grows brighter and brighter until the screen goes white and he wasn't able to make anything out. A few seconds later though, the screen clears out. What the screen captures however, leaves his mouth open with absolute disbelief. If he didn't know this was his own camera and capture equipment, he would believe that it was being Punkd or something. Because what he is...it's crazy. Impossible.

Six people .

There were suddenly six people in his home. How the fuck did they get into his home? Why did his shelf shake? Where did the glow come from? What in the fuck was going on? It felt like that is all that he has been saying lately, but he honestly has no idea what is going on. How can he? It feels like everything that has been happening is things that happen in movies. Like none of this is real. I mean, there are-- were --six people in his home last night!

"Namjoonie-hyung." One of them said sounding worried.

"I know," and with that one of the men immediately walked over to where Jungkook's camera had been set up. The recording turns off. They had shut off the recording, meaning that there was nothing else to see. He doesn't have any way of knowing what these strangers had done after they turned off the camera.

Is this technically enough evidence to take to the police? Even if nothing had been stolen? He does have video evidence of breaking & entering, that's enough of a violation, right? He even had one of their names. He pulls out his phone, ready to call the police, rewinding to back to the part where the name was said so that he would have it.

"Namjoonie-hyung." He pauses the video so that all the perpetrators were on the screen. But...now that they were on screen, there was something that was bugging Jungkook. There were two things that stuck out. One was the fact that the name sounded familiar. The other was that...well, they all looked a little familiar. He wasn't sure where he had seen them before. I mean he doesn't think that he has seen them around the gym that he works at.

It hits him suddenly. One of the men on screen, they were wearing a hat with a hoodie that had some text on it. Due to the angle they were at, he wasn't able to see all of it, but it was enough.

Legal .

A spark. A flash. A glimpse of a memory that showed the doll, Taehyung, dressed in a hoodie that had the words "Legalize Me". Another flash of the first doll he had looked at. Their name was Namjoon.

No. This had to be some freak coincidence. He...he has to check for himself. He closes his laptop and makes his way out of his door. He cautiously makes his way into the living room, walking as if there were land mines that he was having to navigate. He peaks around the corner so he could look at the dolls. They were on the shelf, just positioned as they have been since he has gotten them.

He takes a step closer. And closer. Closer, until he is up to the self that was holding the dolls. He stares at them; inspecting them to see if there was anything noticeably weird or off about them.

He looks into the eyes of the doll he is currently holding, Hoseok. "Are you...." He trails off, not even sure what to ask or say. Are they...real? Are they alive? Magic? All of it sounded crazy. He sighs, "I am going insane."

"No, you're not." A deep voice says out of nowhere. A startled shriek leaves Jungkook's lip, and he drops the doll like a hot potato. He makes a mad dash to the connecting kitchen and grabs a heavy frying pan for some type of protection.  He looks around to see where the voice came from, trying to determine if he could run to his bedroom and call the police in time. He doesn't see anything right away which is definitely alarming, but that is when he sees that the shelf is starting to vibrate and a blinding light starts to overtake the room.

Jungkook hastily squeezes his eyes shut and turns away from the source of the brightness, trying to shield his face with his forearm. Before he realizes it the light is gone. "Sorry, I know I scared you. It would have been kind of hard to avoid it given the situation." The same sounding voice states. Jungkook turns back around, lowering his arm so that he could see what was going on.

Jungkook lowers his hand and is met with the sight of six men. Men that he is starting to get familiar with. Men, that look very similar to his dolls. He peers around the bodies and sees that there are no dolls on the shelf at all at the moment. And it is this connection that makes his eyes roll to the back of his head and feel darkness overtake him.

>>>>>>><<<<<<<

He groggily opens his eyes to the sight of another worried looking set. He screams, subconsciously grabbing hold of the bedsheets that he was laying under, as if it will cause some kind of comfort or protection. 

“Hey, hey, calm down. No one is going to hurt you, Jungkook-ah.” They said. 

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing here? What is going on? Wait, how do you know my name?!” He asks in rapid fire, confused and scared about what is going on.

“We will explain everything, but I think it’s best if we wait until we are all together. I want you to relax and hear us out because it is…a weird situation.” At Jungkook’s continued silenced, they added on, “Guess I should officially introduce myself though. My name is Kim Seokjin, but the rest of the guys just call me Jin.” 

“T-the name of the doll…” Jungkook trials off and Jin nods in return with a small smile. 

“Yes. Like the name of the doll you received.” 

Suddenly there is a knock on the bedroom door. “Hyung—” A body opens the door, but then pauses in their action and seeming to lose their train of thought at the sight of an awake-Jungkook.

“Oh, you’re awake.” They whip this head around and shout over their shoulder, “Hey, Jungkookie is awake!” And with that it was as if a stampede comes down his hallway, before four more heads pop out between the door frame. 

They all were talking over each other causing it to where Jungkook wasn’t able to discern anything besides “I’m sorry!” and “—didn’t mean-” and an “-fault-“. 

“Yah!” Jin shouts, causing Jungkook to jump from the noise. “No one knows what you are saying when you are all talking over each other. Besides Jungkook-ah just woke up, stop scaring him even more than he already is. We will explain everything when he is ready.” Jin says, putting his foot down to quell the chaos. A collective, “Sorry,” was said to which Jin nodded and shooed them out the door. “Do us all a favor, and go get us those supplies for lunch please.”

Once the door was shut, he turns back to Jungkook. “Sorry about that. I know that everything is already overwhelming. If it makes it any better, they are just worried about you. They care about you. Which I know sounds crazy since you know really know us, but we know you.” Jungkook opens his mouth to question, but Jin shakes his head. “Sorry, I know I keep teasing everything, but like I said. We will explain everything in due time.” 

“When?” Jungkook asks, all these emotions clashing; confusion, scared, frustration, a hint of intrigued. 

Jin gives another small smile. “It seems like no matter what I say, I keep causing frustration, huh. I don’t mean to speak in riddles and be elusive. I just don’t want to overwhelm you. If you wish for a specific time, let’s say in an hour. I would like to get some food in your belly and then we can get everyone together to discuss and explain.” 

And that is exactly what happens. Jin—Jungkook assumes—makes some rice, kimchi, and japphae for them all to eat after the others return from the store with supplies. Jungkook doesn’t say aloud, only because he doesn’t know how these people are truly, but the meal was one of the best he has had in a while. While he isn’t the worst at cooking, he just doesn’t have the energy to make food for himself and then clean up the mess afterwards. Yes, he was lazy.

Once he finishes, he sets aside his bowls and utensils. “So…” He trials off, hoping that anyone of the other men in the room would catch on and launch into the explanation of whatever the fuck is going on.

Jin clears his throat before taking the initiative. “Well, let’s all start off with introducing ourselves. I already officially introduced myself when Jungkook-ah first woke up, but I’ll say it again. My name is Kim Seokjin, and everyone just calls me Jin.” 

“My name is Kim Taehyung.” The one with the hat and Legalize Me hoodie says.

“Min Yoongi.” The one with the loosely knitted sweater that was pretty much see through to the black tank top underneath says.

“Hello, I’m Kim Namjoon.” Waves the man with white platinum hair. 

“Nice to meet you officially, Jungkookie. My name is Park Jimin.” The man with bright pink hair and the red fuzzy cardigan says. 

“Jung Hoseokie!” The man with fiery red hair says with a heart shaped smile.

"Good! Now that the introductions are out of the way, we can move on!" Jin says, clasping his hands together with a big smile. "So, Jungkook-ah, do you want to ask a question and we can just start from there?"

"Well, I guess..."He trials off, lowering his head into his hands. He knew what he wanted to ask, but to ask it aloud...it would make him sound insane.

"It's fine, Jungkookie. Trust us, no matter what you ask, we have probably heard it before." Jimin says.

That springs another question, but he pushes it away and adds it to his mental list of questions that he plans on asking. Instead, he decides to ask, "Are you guys the dolls?" They all nod their head silently. Jungkook purses his lips together, nodding his head slowly as if it was an acceptable answer. "How?"

They all look between each other, probably trying to figure out who would answer the question. It was Hoseok who spoke, "We were cursed. We became dolls that were only able to become human at night." 

“A curse?” Jungkook repeats with raised eyebrows. 

“Yep! It was an accidental one though, so don’t be too mad at Hyejin.” Jimin tacks on. Jungkook just dumbly blinks, not being able to follow along. How do one accidentally get cursed? 

As if reading his mind, Namjoon jumps in. “Hyejin was a witch in training and a friend of ours. She had a trial coming up and needed to practice a certain spell for it to make sure she passed. As her close friends, we of course volunteered to help to let her practice. But…” Namjoon pauses, his face dropping as he seems to be remembering a dark memory. “Well, it was an honest mistake. She was supposed to make us ‘as cute as dolls’, but…as you can probably guess, we were all turned into actual dolls.” 

Jungkook stayed silent, not having anything to add, not sure what he could add even if he was supposed to. It was obvious that this was a memory that was touchy for all of them as he realizes that all of them were looking away, staring off into nothing, a sad look on their face. 

“Hyejin—” Taehyung’s voice cracks so he clears his throat. “Hyejin felt terrible. Blamed herself. She, um…she went to the Board of Magic and told them what happened. Hoping that there would be a fix, an “undo” button if you will. But--” He takes a heavy, shaky breath. “They told her that there wasn’t a way to undo what happened. They explained that only the one that placed the curse, can fix it. Hyejin begged them how, but they didn’t know. Apparently, this was the first time in magic history that our situation happened. They didn’t know what to do either. The only other option, is to wait the curse out. Wait until the magic of the curse is lifted. Hyejin of course, the sweetest person in the world, spent the rest of her life trying to figure out how to reverse and lift the curse, but...she wasn't able to.”  

“I…I don’t know what to say. I mean, witches, curses, magic ? It’s all real?” Jungkook says in disbelief from the overload of information.  

“Yes, from what we have gathered during the few hours we are human each day, it seems like magic has slipped away in this world. If there is any left, besides us, they are hiding away somewhere.”  

“How long?” Jungkook asks them. 

At first, they exchanged looks with each other, confused exactly what Jungkook was asking. It was Yoongi who answers the question. “We have been dolls for almost 1500 years. In about 18 months, the curse should be lifted completely.” They finish with a soft smile that shows a peek of his gums. 

“1500 years?!” Jungkook shouts out in surprise.  

“I know, our beauty doesn’t show it.” Jin says, cupping his face in a teasing manner to try and lighten the mood after the heavy revelation. It got a few chuckles and smiles out of them. “But yes, like Yoongi-yah said, we only have a few more months left, and we will be back to normal again.” An unsaid, hopefully and should , hangs in the air. 

Jungkook was still flabbergasted to find out that witches, magic, curses and spells, are all real—or at least were at one point in time. He was curious. “So, were you humans before? How did you know Hyejin?” 

“Well, because we were witches as well.” Jimin says so casually and matter-of-factly, as if they were just talking about how the sky is blue. 

“Ones that had already passed our trials and were full-fledged witches.” Jin adds. 

“So—” Jungkook starts to ask, but is cut off by Hoseok, “We don’t have our magic anymore. When we were turned to dolls, the curse took away our abilities to do magic.” 

“Wow, that…” Jungkook trials off, “Sucks? Yeah, but over the past 1,498 years, 6 months and 12 days, we have learned to get over it.” Namjoon says with a chuckle.  

“You big brained, himbo muffin.” Taehyung says, leaning and snuggling up against Namjoon’s shoulder, whose face turns red at the statement. 

Jungkook was feeling a little uncomfortable. Was this…an intimate thing? Were they together? He clears his throat, looking away from the men across from him. Has never been good around couples and affection. He feels envious, uncomfortable, like…like his is missing out on something. It was something that he didn’t like to dwell on, so he always just pushes it away and ignores it.  

“We really didn’t mean for this conversation to come about like this.” Hoseok says with an apologetic smile. “Like I said, there isn’t really an easy way to break this up since whoever we end up with thinks we are just normal dolls at first.” 

“Yeah…it is definitely weird. I still feel like this is some where dream. Or that this is just a figment of my mind and I’m actually dying because of the intruder I thought there was.” Jungkook tells them. 

“Well, I’m happy to say that it’s neither, especially the latter. We all are.” Yoongi says, eyes warm while looking at Jungkook who quickly shifts his eyes away. 

“Yeah, you are one of the few people that talked to us when we were dolls.” Taehyung says, smiling so wide that it becomes shaped like a box.  

Jungkook flushes, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. “I have a weird thing where I give inanimate objects an imaginary consciousness.”  

“It’s very cute.” Jimin says, eyes disappearing behind a smile.  

“Yeah, very cute! It made me sad when you thought you weren’t in the right of mind, so that’s why I accidentally said what I said when you were holding TaeTae.” Hoseok explains, pouting his lips some. 

“Are you just acting like a doll during the day then? How were you able to talk?” Jungkook asks, confused about how the entire incident started. 

“The time limit going down is the biggest factor. However, if we are talked to as dolls, or if we have conversations with others when we are human, then it also helps in restoring our humanity. ” Namjoon says. 

“Allows us to stay humans longer and we are able to get out of doll form during the day.” Jin tacks on. “Do you have any other questions?”  

Jungkook thinks in silence for a few seconds, racking his brain for anything that might still hold some confusion around. “I’m not sure, a lot of information has been dumped on me. I do, but, it isn’t something that you guys will be able to answer. It’s about Jinwoo.”  

Yoongi makes a understanding humming noise. “That’s fine. If you do have more questions, please feel free to ask any of us, okay?” He tells Jungkook, and everyone else nods their head in agreement, that Jungkook would be able to go to any of them. 

“I mean if this is all true, like you say it is, this is pretty cool. Minus the curse for a thousand years part, of course.” Jungkook babbles, his anime and game loving mind reeling since this sounds a lot of like something that would happening in one. Something magical. Fantastical. Seemingly impossible.  

Yet...it has. Right here. Sitting in front of him, were six impossibilities.  

>>>>>>><<<<<<< 

Soon, six months have flown by and Jinwoo shows up at Jungkook’s door.  

“Hey, how have you been?” He asks Jungkook.  

“Good. You,” he points his finger in Jinwoo’s face, “are one tricky bitch.” He says, causing Jinwoo to burst out laughing.  

“Sorry, but would you have believed me, even if I did tell you?” He rebuttals back. The playful teasing ends there, knowing that nothing seriously bad had happened and that Jinwoo was right. “How have they been?” Jinwoo questions him.

"Well, the place isn't burnt down to the ground." Jungkook tells him. A "Yet!" comes from somewhere deeper in the home that sounds like Jin.

"Namjoon start a fire here too, huh." Jinwoo snickers.

"Hey~" Namjoon pouts. "I try really hard. It's not my fault that I was also cursed against cooking."

Jungkook smiles at Namjoon. "Don't worry, Namjoon. We will take care of you and cook food for you, so please stay out of the kitchen." He pats Namjoon on the shoulder.

"I'm you senior, you know." Namjoon raises his left eyebrow.

"I know!" Jungkook says cheerfully. Namjoon sighs and walks away, knowing that there's no reason to argue, especially since Jungkook was just playing around.

Jinwoo and Jungkook end up talking, just catching up on what Jinwoo had been up to while abroad, when Jin comes barreling in the room. "Did you hear about how Namjoon burned the house down? Like I am talking a big, mile-high fire. We barely made it out alive. A big, strong, sexy firefighter had to carry me out. And give me mouth to mouth." He heaves a dramatic sigh, draping his wrist over his forehead.

It was at this point that Yoongi comes in, grabbing onto Jin's arm to drag him out, obviously trying to help get Jungkook and Jinwoo alone for a few minutes. "First of all, it was only a little burnt toast. Second, the fire department was never contacted. That firefighter was just Jungkook's arms that you had jumped into and then refused to leave as you continued to grope his muscles." Yoongi clears up.

"A burnt pieced of toast that was on fire . How does that even happen?" Jin says in disbelief.

Yoongi ignores that, "Let's go and leave them alone for a few minutes."

"Fine. Just don't take away our boyfriend, okay Jinwoo?" Jin directs towards the named man.

Jinwoo laughs as Jungkook's ears burn red, ducking his head down between his shoulders, looking at his lap. "Don't worry about it. He's all yours." Jinwoo concedes. Jin hums, smiling, and allows himself to be taken away by Yoongi. "Well, looks like everything is going well between you guys."

With embarrassment still burning through his skin, Jungkook agrees. "Yeah. We have."

"I'm glad to hear that. I came here actually hoping that I could leave them here with you."

Jungkook gets whiplash. He had forgotten that the set up was temporary, but now they get to stay? "Why?"

"Well, me being aboard went really well and I am actually going to be going out there for several years for an exchange program." Jinwoo explains.

"Oh my gosh! That's amazing." Jungkook congrats. They go ahead and discuss a little more. Jinwoo explaining what the program for the next few years would entail.

Finally, Jinwoo goes quiet with a gentle smile. "So...how long have you guys been together?"

Jungkook clears his throat. "Well, actually...we talked it out last night."

"Wow, how did it go?"

"Well, it actually happened last night after the fire incident."

"Wait, a   fire incident?"

"Yeah. We were trying to make a special dinner, all of us pitching in to help out. That's when Namjoon-hyung caused the smoke alarm to go off. I'm not sure what it was, but for some reason they decided to confess to me. We discussed it and...I think I like them too. So," He shrugs his shoulders, "we are trying it out."

"Wait...like all of you guys? All 7?" Jungkook nods his head. "Wow, you did not limit yourself." Jinwoo teases with a smirk.

"I mean, can you blame me? Beautiful, ex-witches, curses. It's like we were destined or something." Jungkook semi-teases back.

Jinwoo gives a sincere smile. "I really am glad that you are happy though. You deserve it."

"Thanks," Jungkook smiles back. “I hope that you enjoy your exchange. It sounds like you will have fun.” 

“Yeah, it will definitely be fun.” A secretive smile spreads across Jinwoo’s face. With that and a sudden pop , Jinwoo was gone. Jungkook is temporarily stunned, blinking before he looks around but still not coming across a Jinwoo. 

“What the actual fuck . Is Jinwoo a witch or something?!”