Chapter Text
“Hey,” Taehyung says, softly at first, but when the man goes on walking, promptly ignoring him, he says his words in a louder, more convicted voice. “Hey, you know I can see you, right?”
The man abruptly stops in his steps, turning around to face Taehyung. Even when he’s wearing a wide-brimmed black hat, Taehyung could see that he’s narrowing his small eyes at him, as if daring him to say that again. “I can see you.” Taehyung repeats, and he could see surprise momentarily register in the man’s face before he’s schooling his expression back to neutral.
He walks towards Taehyung with steady steps, face closed off in a blank expression and eyes devoid of any emotion. He folds his hands in front of his stomach, and it’s then that Taehyung notices the card he’s holding. “And do you know what I am?”
“Of course.” Taehyung juts his chin out at the man, trying to look bigger. He’s already grown so much that even when he’s only sixteen, he’s just as tall as the man. It’s not his goal to intimidate those like him, but when you’ve practically grown up with ghosts with some of them trying to scare the shit out of you, you get whatever your hand could have to look like you can’t get scared of them. “You’re a ghost, but not just that. You’re a grim reaper.”
The man looks around, as if to check if anyone’s heard Taehyung talking, but there’s no one passing around this side of town. On days like these, it seems, the entire neighbourhood is practically a ghost town.
“Most of the people who live here are students and office workers, but it’s a weekend so they’re all mostly at home now.” Taehyung explains, and part of the tension in the man’s back uncoils, but the set of his shoulders is still tense. “So who are you here for?”
The question seems to catch the reaper off-guard, and he looks Taehyung straight in the eyes, as if trying to look for something there. After a moment, he says, “You don’t know?”
“Of course I don’t.” Taehyung rolls his eyes at the ghost. Isn’t that part a little too obvious? ”I can see ghosts, not read their minds. And I can’t read death cards—I’m still human.”
The man looks down on the card in his hands, embossed with the insignia of death. It looks blank to Taehyung, but he’s known grim reapers since he was a nine year old—enough to know that they don’t usually go walking around aimlessly for nothing while wearing their black, wide-brimmed hats to keep them from being seen by the naked eye and holding death cards in their hands. He’s also happened to be friends with a few grim reapers (like Namjoon, who’s reliable enough to handle higher level ghosts that could possibly turn into demons but can’t be trusted to take a frying pan out of the stove, and Hoseok who seems to be too much of a happy persona to become a grim reaper in the first place) to know well enough that although the cards appear blank to him and to any other person (or soul), grim reapers could see names of the people who are about to die on it, along with a few other details—their age, cause of death, when they will die.
Taehyung’s all too familiar with these things that he’s developed a sense of indifference to seeing ghosts every day, and although it still unnerves him when he sees reapers walking around in their dark uniforms and dark hats, knowing that somewhere, someone is going to be taken away from their mortal life, he knows it’s not their fault that someone dies.
“What’s your name?”
Taehyung mulls over saying it for a while. There had been legends saying that if you look into a grim reaper’s eyes and they say your name three times, you will die. Of course he isn’t sure if it’s true (Hoseok could just have been shitting him for shits and giggles), but it’s better to be safe than sorry. “I don’t know, what’s your name?”
The man squints his eyes at Taehyung. “If you really do know what we’re like, then you probably already know that I don’t have my memories? Which means I don’t have a name.”
“Still, you guys don’t just call each other reaper 1,2, 3, right?” Taehyung shrugs nonchalantly, and if possible, the man narrows his eyes even further that Taehyung thinks for a moment that he’s closing his eyes. “Reaper A, B, C? X, Y, Z? A1, A2, A3?”
He doesn’t seem to run out of sarcasm though, because the next thing he tells Taehyung is ridiculous. “We can call each other reaper x to the fourth power and reaper integral of dx over dy, it doesn’t matter.”
Taehyung frowns at him. He’s never seen a grim reaper that’s had too much sass as this one (Hoseok would have been that, but he’s more parts nice than he’s equal parts sassy). “You could give a name for yourself. Namjoon hyung has a name. Hoseok hyung has a name. Why shouldn’t you have one?”
The man is quiet for a moment, contemplative, as if he’s remembering something that was from his undead life here. “It’s—“he starts, but then he cuts himself short, shooting a glare back at Taehyung as if he’s been rudely interrupted with what he was doing. “It’s none of your business.”
“C’mon, ahjussi.” Taehyung emphasizes the honorific and drags it out into a whine, and the man looks positively horrified at him. He doesn’t look older than twenty (or twenty-five, if Taehyung was pushing it), but Taehyung knows for a fact that the souls of people who have committed grave sins suffer in a void of nothingness for a long time before they’re given the chance to become reapers, so this guy is definitely more than a hundred years old. He can’t help but wonder now what kind of sin this man has committed for him to be turned into a reaper.
The man stares at Taehyung, not looking like he’s ready to back out of a fight, but then Taehyung tries to cling on to him and he promptly avoids Taehyung’s touch. He makes an affronted noise at the back of his throat, but the man only avoids him again. He doesn’t know what it is with grim reapers and not wanting to be touched—Namjoon isn’t all adverse to it, but he likes keeping his distance from humans. Hoseok, on the other hand, who’s probably the clingiest reaper, suddenly froze the first time he made physical contact with Taehyung, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. He gave Taehyung a pitying look then—one that Taehyung couldn’t place where it was rooting from—and even when Taehyung tried to ask him about it, he only diverted the topic of the conversation.
Taehyung frowns, but chooses not to comment on it. “I can’t just keep on calling you ‘ahjussi’. And you don’t look far from my age even when you’re probably as old as the earth.”
The man’s lips form into a thin, straight line, and he looks like he’s going to say something as a retort—probably something along the lines of him not actually being as old as the earth, or maybe even dinosaurs—but Taehyung throws in a pout and his best puppy dog eyes and the man’s lips inadvertently twitch to form a half-smile. It’s too late when he catches himself smiling, but he smothers the look nonetheless, pretending to look exasperated. “Fine.” The man sighs in defeat, and Taehyung knows he’s completely won over now. “Call me Yoongi.”
“Yoongi. Yoongi-ssi? Yoongi hyung?” Taehyung tries with a grin, letting the man’s name roll over his tongue. It’s not a common name, but Taehyung feels like he’s heard it somewhere before.
“Yoongi hyung is okay.”
“Then, I’ll call you Yoongi hyung!” Taehyung chirps, and it sits familiar in his tongue—it feels like he could get used to saying Yoongi’s name a lot.
“You could.” Yoongi shrugs. “You should.”
“Anyway, why are you here again?” Taehyung adjusts the straps of his backpack and starts walking the way Yoongi was initially walking towards—coincidentally, the house he stays in is that way. “Are you going to have your hat dry-cleaned? My grandparents own a Laundromat.”
Yoongi trails along beside him, careful not to accidentally brush arms with him. “The Kim’s?”
“Yeah, that!” Taehyung beams proudly. “It’s the best in town, if I might say!”
Yoongi’s quiet for a moment, looking around the neighbourhood with a pensive look on his face. “You’re Kim Yoonshik’s grandson?”
“Yeah, why—“Taehyung pauses in his tracks, the sudden realization hitting him. But it can’t be, his grandfather just turned seventy two, he can’t possibly be…
Taehyung lets the thought trail away. He doesn’t want to think about what will happen if whatever he’s thinking is true. Yoongi turns to look at him slowly, as if he’s being careful of jostling Taehyung when in fact, he’s standing a safe distance away from Taehyung. Then, in a measured voice, he says, “You know why I’m here now, don’t you?”
Taehyung reaches out instinctively to cling on to Yoongi’s coat, but he lets his fingers hover over air and lets his hand fall to his side, knowing that Yoongi wouldn’t like it. “You’re taking him, aren’t you?”
Yoongi doesn’t answer—just looks at Taehyung with the same expression of sympathy Taehyung’s seen on the very first reaper he saw on the day he woke up in the hospital. Namjoon had looked at him then with a mixture of pity and sorrow, but when he asked what was happening and who Namjoon was, the grim reaper only shook his head in reply before stepping aside and pressing the button on Taehyung’s bedside to alert the doctors that Taehyung was awake.
There’s a tear that escapes Taehyung’s eyes, and before he could even stop himself, he’s already crying, hiccups wracking his body and hot tears streaming down his cheeks. Yoongi starts looking panicked—he looks torn between wanting to comfort Taehyung and running away to find someone else to comfort him, and Taehyung could see in the slight hesitation in his face that he’s also tempted to run away.
Taehyung doesn’t know what’s gotten over him, but there’s a great pain in his chest and it just won’t go away. No matter how hard he tries to wipe away his tears, they’re not stopping from flowing out of his eyes and he doesn’t know what to do anymore.
Suddenly, like a very uncharacteristic turn of events, Yoongi grabs him and envelopes him into a hug. He freezes for a moment, his muscles coiled in tension, but then he starts rubbing his hand on Taehyung’s back.
Taehyung doesn’t know why, but he suddenly feels calmer—Yoongi’s hands are cold where they awkwardly pat him on the back, but his breath is warm against Taehyung’s neck. “Why must you take everyone from me?” Taehyung doesn’t mean to make it sound accusatory, but when it comes out like that, he doesn’t correct himself.
“We’re not doing it on purpose, Taehyung we—“Yoongi chokes on his words, and he breathes in deeply. Taehyung can’t see his face so he doesn’t know what expression Yoongi has on now, but he feels the rattle of Yoongi’s chest against his when Yoongi drags on a sigh. “We’re just on orders. The deities—they do things this way in order to keep the balance.”
“Is it still balance even if some people are unhappy?”
Yoongi pulls away from the hug to look at Taehyung square in the eyes. “You know, things like these… They don’t always have a happy ending. I don’t know why the deities make their decisions this way but you should remember that there’s always a reason for everything.”
Taehyung sniffs, wiping at his nose with the sleeve of his jacket. It’s not even winter yet, but with the way Taehyung feels the coldness in his heart, the season could have already changed since moments ago. “Do you even believe that?”
“No.” Yoongi gives a dry, hollow laugh devoid of any humor. “But I want to believe it. And maybe someday, I will believe it. And maybe someday, you will, too.”
When Taehyung has calmed down, he sips on a strawberry milk drink that Yoongi has bought for him. Yoongi doesn’t talk about it, but Taehyung knows he’s late. When Taehyung tries to tell him this, Yoongi already beat him to it. “It’s going to happen later, at midnight. You need to say your goodbyes first.”
Taehyung scratches the tip of his nose. What Yoongi’s trying to offer him doesn’t really help much, but it’s as good as he can get. He taps his foot on the pavement, glancing at Yoongi. “Maybe I knew it already too, you know? These days, he’s been telling me how he’s going to greet death like an old friend.” Taehyung hums under his breath. “Hyung, were you friends with my grandfather?”
“No, but I believe he knows one of us.” Comes Yoongi’s direct answer. “He might have been thinking that his friend would be the one fetching him.”
Taehyung only knows three reasons why people would be able to see ghosts—the first of them being that the person has almost died before, the second being that by some faulty in the system, that person has become a missing soul, and the third being something like what has happened to Taehyung: a miracle. There was an outlier that’s become an important variable in saving the life of someone. If that missing soul hasn’t died trying to save the people on board the bus where Taehyung’s family was in, then he wouldn’t have been alive now. He hopes that the deities were at least kinder to his grandfather in life, and even in death.
“Hyung,” Taehyung starts, and Yoongi looks at him with full, undivided attention. “Our place would be lonelier now that grandpa’s going to be gone. Will you be coming back to visit me?”
“I will.” It sounds like a promise more than anything, and Taehyung, for the better part of him, smiles. Yoongi grins back, an awkward smile on his face. Yet somehow, Taehyung feels infinitely better now.