Jimin had always considered himself to be fairly normal. There was nothing especially spectacular about his life, and he spent the majority of his time just trying to make a living - content with staying in his small, one bedroom house in the suburbs, but always happy to have a bit of extra cash for the occasional weekend away from home or a new, expensive gadget he had been admiring for a while. He was prudent with his money, and he lived a rather comfortable, if unremarkable, life.

That was one of the reasons why he was so caught off guard when a fast-talking young man showed up on his doorstep one day, shaking Jimin’s hand before the latter even had a chance to process what exactly was happening.

“Kim Taehyung,” the widely smiling man introduced himself. “Nice to meet you, Jimin; how’s it going?”

The other man spoke with great enthusiasm, and Jimin found himself wondering how the boy was so energetic when it was still this early in the morning. Jimin had barely sat down with his morning cup of tea when there was a knock at the back door, and the sleepy-eyed man had thought it odd that there was a visitor at all at this ungodly hour - nevermind the fact that whoever it was was using the completely wrong door.

The man in front of him had wild and unbrushed orange-colored hair, which only served to accentuate the absurdity of his entrance as he let himself into the sparsely-decorated little kitchen, brushing past a very confused, half-asleep Jimin.

“Can I help you?” asked Jimin, astounded by the eccentric stranger’s imposition.

“I’m glad that you asked that,” beamed Taehyung as he helped himself to Jimin’s large mug of steaming tea. “Because the answer is ‘yes.’ In fact, that’s why I came here in the first place.”

He took a long sip of the amber-colored liquid, and held the mug out to Jimin to offer the latter some of what had once been his own tea. Jimin brushed the other man’s hand away with a scowl, not willing to take the chance of catching some god-knows-what horrible disease from a man he didn’t know at all.

Taehyung didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by Jimin’s obvious disgust, and he took another swig of the hot beverage before continuing.

“I need your help with finding a certain… animal,” explained Taehyung. He had become surprisingly apprehensive compared to his earlier energy. “And I’m told you’re one of the best at what you do.”

✧✧✧

If Jimin had been surprised before, then he was totally lost now - and he didn’t know what he could possibly say next that would help the conversation to make any sense to him. He had no idea what the young man sitting antsily across from him at the table was talking about, and he was baffled by the latter’s ambiguous request.

“If you’re trying to find an animal, I think you need to go to the pet store - not my house,” snapped Jimin. He pushed Taehyung’s feet off the table as the young man tried to use the furniture to steady himself while he leaned backwards in his chair. “And what the hell do you mean I’m ‘one of the best?’ The best at what?”

Taehyung stared at the frowning man incredulously. His mouth dropped open slightly before he tried to compose his face, his deep voice suddenly becoming more serious.

“Wait. Do you really not know what I’m talking about?” he questioned as the same dumbstruck look spread across his face for a second time.

Jimin said that he thought it was pretty plainly obvious that he did not, and asked Taehyung again what the latter meant by everything he had just said.

“Sorry, sorry,” apologized Taehyung quickly. “It’s just… when I got your name from my contact in Seoul, I thought… well, I assumed you would at least know what was going on.”

The auburn-haired man laughed nervously as he simultaneously tried to take another sip of Jimin’s tea, and ended up spitting the burning liquid all over the kitchen table. He wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt before Jimin could offer him a napkin, so the latter set to work mopping the wasted tea off of the table instead as he listened to Taehyung talk.

“Sorry again. Anyway, the guy who told me to ask for your help made it seem like you weren’t going to be so totally ing clueless,” continued the young man. “Guess he was wrong, though. How the heck do you know absolutely nothing about this? Have you really never done it before?”

“I still have no idea what you’re even talking about,” Jimin reminded him grumpily. He got up to throw the tea-soaked towels in the trash, and returned to his chair at the table beside Taehyung. “Could you at least try to explain what’s going on?”

Taehyung stood up and made a show of bowing formally before introducing himself again, with a flourish of his hand that Jimin thought looked both absurd and egotistical.

“Kim Taehyung, monster hunter, at your service.” He smiled at the extremely confused young man in front of him. “I seek the truth, and strive to bring it to the attention of the public. And I let not fear, pain, or government cover-ups stand in the way of my noble quest.”

The whole speech seemed incredibly rehearsed, and Jimin could hardly believe his own ears as he listened to it. Taehyung finished and looked at him expectantly, but Jimin didn’t know how to respond to that level of ridiculousness.

“I’m sorry. Could you repeat all that - slowly this time - and then check yourself in to the nearest mental institution?” asked Jimin, still glued to his seat as he looked up at the eccentric boy.

Taehyung frowned, but quickly replaced the expression with a wide, blocky smile as he assumed that the other man was joking. In fact, he was not, and Jimin was about to tell the standing young man this fact when the latter jumped toward him, nearly knocking Jimin out of his chair.

“You’re funny, Jimin,” he giggled. “I like you.”

“Please don’t,” whimpered Jimin.

He was wondering how feasible it would be for him to leap away from the table and make a run for the phone that was hanging on the wall behind Taehyung so that he could call the police and tell them that a maniac had broken into his home. Before Jimin could execute his plan, however, Taehyung started speaking again, and the former’s mind raced to keep up with the rapid waterfall of words that came spilling out of the young man’s mouth.

“Usually Sensors are kind of giant jerks. They all think they’re so important just ’cause they can see some that normal people like me can’t, and then they get all high and mighty - and difficult to work with.” Taehyung paused briefly to take a breath. “But not you, Jiminnie.” Jimin flinched at the cutesy nickname. “You’re pretty cool, for someone who doesn’t even know they can see monsters.”

Taehyung looked down at him with big puppy-dog eyes, and Jimin again found himself at a loss for words. He decided that it probably would be best to call the police at this point, and dropped to the ground in an attempt to roll away from the overeager young man hovering above him.

✧✧✧

Taehyung grabbed onto Jimin’s shoulders as the latter stood up to reach the phone, stopping him in his tracks and spinning the shorter man around to look at his frightened face.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” gasped Jimin.

“Alright. Let me try to explain again,” Taehyung muttered, searching for the words to express what exactly he wanted to convey.

“No,” interrupted Jimin. “You’re insane. I don’t ‘see monsters,’ you can’t hunt them because they don’t even exist, and you pretty much just broke into my ing house to steal my tea and spew nonsense at me! I am calling the police.”

Taehyung stared blankly ahead as he released Jimin’s shoulders, and the latter hesitated to actually reach for the phone because he was so curious about how Taehyung would respond. The orange-haired man quickly recovered, and another bright, boxy smile spread across his face as he started to talk.

“I guess if you want to use the technical term, my title is actually ‘cryptozoologist,’” Taehyung admitted. “And you may not know it, but according to my friend in Seoul, you are an extremely sensitive cryptid sensing machine. So to speak.”

“Cryptids?” Jimin repeated. “You mean like Bigfoot or whatever?”

Taehyung bucked with laughter.

“Bigfoot? Please. Everyone knows that sasquatches are real, Jimin. No; what I’m after is something a bit more… interesting.”

Jimin pondered this for a moment as the taller man continued to smile down at him. He didn’t know whether or not to believe the stranger, as he thought that a discovery confirming the existence of Bigfoot would have at least made the local news or something, and the fact that the giant apes were real - according to Taehyung - was new information to him.

“The creatures I deal with primarily are closer to what most people would call ‘paranormal,’” added Taehyung. “Which is why I need your assistance, you see.”

Jimin just stared at him, so Taehyung continued.

“I came here to ask for your help on my latest project,” he explained. “Namjoon told me you were the only Sensor who was available to work and also lived in this area - and I guess now I know why, considering you have no ing clue about how any of this works.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up,” commanded Jimin. “I don’t know what exactly this Namjoon guy told you - or how he even knows who the hell I am - but I am definitely not a Sensor, or whatever you called it. Wouldn’t I kind of be the first person to know if I was actually able to see goddamn monsters?”

“Not necessarily, I suppose,” contemplated Taehyung. “Sensors act more like divining rods than magnets - it’s not like you’re a beacon for monsters or anything. So I guess if you haven’t been actively looking for any of that kind of stuff, you could miss the fact that you actually have a gift for seeing things that other people think just aren’t there.”

Jimin felt himself growing more and more confused again, so he asked a question that he hoped would clarify at least a few of the details that he had still failed to wrap his head around.

“You said that you’re trying to find something that’s ‘paranormal,’” he recalled slowly, trying to phrase his words in such a way that actually had a chance of getting him a straight answer. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Taehyung’s face lit up at the opportunity to talk about his work. He put a hand on Jimin’s shoulder as he led the shorter man into the living room, and pushed him down on the sofa before taking a seat himself.

“Buckle up, kid.”

Jimin thought that that was an odd way for the obviously more immature and slightly younger man to refer to him, but he ignored it as Taehyung continued to grin while he spoke animatedly.

“You’re in for a wild explanation.”