Jimin slammed the door shut and slumped against it.

Goddamn lunatic coming into my house and drinking my tea.

He went back into the kitchen and started assembling the materials necessary for making another cup of the stuff, and thought about what he might like to have for breakfast. The young man found that his appetite had been spoiled by the morning’s turn of events, however, so he settled for adding some extra sugar to his drink so that it would at least keep him awake, and set to work doing mundane tasks around the house for the rest of the day.

It wasn’t until he was brushing his teeth later that evening that Jimin thought back to what Taehyung had said.

‘Be careful.’

But careful of what? Sure; Jimin had experienced all of the common fears characteristic of childhood: the monsters living in his closet and under his bed, the ghosts in his basement, and the old man down the street who ate misbehaving children - just to name a few. But he and his young friends had shared in all these imagined childhood fears. Just because Jimin was prone to thinking that the sweater draped over the chair in his darkened bedroom was really a giant, black snake didn’t mean that those things were real or that he could see something that others couldn’t.

Unless all of that only serves to prove Taehyung’s point. We all have those fears because those things are really there.

He spit in the sink and washed the toothpaste down the drain. That was ridiculous. Jimin knew he was letting the orange-haired man get to him, but he couldn’t shake the asive feeling of unease that had descended upon him as soon as the sun had set. He decided that it would be best to call a friend in hopes of calming his frazzled nerves.

✧✧✧

Click.

“Hello?”

The sound of Yoongi’s voice on the other end of the phone made Jimin feel immediately better, and he almost forgot why he had called as he shimmied farther under his comforting bedsheets.

“Yoongi? It’s Jimin. Can I ask you a question?”

“Uhhh, sure,” replied the older man. “I guess.”

“Did you believe in monsters when you were a kid?”

Yoongi snorted. Jimin started to feel like an idiot for asking such a random question, but to his surprise, the other man answered seriously.

“Yeah… I guess I did,” mused Yoongi. “But so did everyone, right? Why are you asking me this question at ten o'clock at night, Jimin? Are you watching a scary movie by yourself or something?”

“No, it’s not that…” hesitated Jimin. “I just - I ran into this guy today who started talking about monsters and legends and stuff, and I guess it kind of freaked me out.”

Yoongi sighed.

“Dammit, Jimin. Why do you have to be so impressionable?” he teased.

“Hey! I’m not impressionable,” protested an offended Jimin.

“Yeah? If you’re such a free thinker, then why are you losing sleep right now over something some weirdo shouted at you today on the streets?”

Yoongi sounded tired himself, and Jimin realized that he had probably woken his friend up when he’d called. The older man did love his sleep, and Jimin felt guilty for disturbing it - but he still knew that he needed to get some closure on the whole concept of monsters.

“But to answer your question again: yes. I did believe in monsters when I was a little kid,” continued Yoongi. “Everyone knows that those things aren’t really real, though, Jimin. So stop psyching yourself out and get some rest.”

“What… what kind of monsters did you believe in?” stuttered Jimin.

Yoongi grunted again, and for a long, breathless moment, Jimin thought that his friend was going to tell him to get lost, or hang up the phone himself. After a couple of seconds, however, the older man answered Jimin’s question.

“I dunno; there used to be this clicking sound in my attic,” Yoongi admitted. “When I was a kid, I thought that there was some horrible creature with long nails and sharp teeth that lived up there and ate rats or something.”

Jimin’s eyes widened. He could remember several of his other childhood friends who had had similar fears - and it even sounded somewhat like one of the examples that Taehyung had used earlier that day - but surely that could have all just been a coincidence.

“But… my mom and dad told me that it was probably just squirrels or raccoons or some other wild animal that had gotten in the rafters up there. And you know what? They were right,” Yoongi concluded. “Nothing ever happened. There was no monster in the attic, and I grew up and realized that there are scarier things in life than the stuff that goes bump in the night.”

Jimin swallowed, struggling to push past the dense lump that had formed in his throat. Taehyung had used the exact same phrase earlier today when he was trying to convince Jimin of the existence of monsters, and now Yoongi was using it as support for the argument that he should have nothing to worry about. Jimin knew deep down that he should trust his old friend. Yoongi was logical and intelligent, and everything he had said made perfect sense. But some of it had also confirmed what Taehyung had been getting at earlier.

“Look, do you want me to come over or something?” Yoongi yawned. “Would it make you feel better if I stayed up with you for a few hours?”

“No,” Jimin refused. “You’re right; it’s just me freaking myself out like always. I’ll be fine on my own. Thanks, Yoongi.”

✧✧✧

The older man said goodnight and hung up the phone, and Jimin watched as the phosphorescent screen of his own mobile device faded out, slowly plunging the room into an unsettling darkness. Jimin didn’t know how to feel, but he realized with regret that he maybe actually felt a little worse after calling Yoongi. It wasn’t the other man’s fault; he had said everything he should have to try to calm Jimin down. The young boy just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss - although his quiet, locked house should have suggested exactly the opposite.

With a heavy sigh, Jimin placed the cellphone on his bedside table, and pulled the covers up over his head. He might as well at least try to sleep, even if he did feel uneasy about the whole situation. Yoongi was probably right, and Jimin was sure that after a good night’s sleep, he would be able to quiet the gentle but persistently nagging fears - just as he always had when he’d had trouble falling asleep as a child.

After a few dozen minutes of tossing and turning, Jimin was finally able to find a position comfortable enough to doze off in, and his breathing steadied as he calmed himself down and drifted to sleep.

Grrrrrrr.

A deep, rumbling growl woke Jimin up, pulling him sharply out of his dreamless sleep. He sat up in bed, confused and disoriented as the sound came again - this time from the foot of his two-person bed.

Grrrrrrr-rah!

The snarl was sharper this time, and Jimin whipped his head around to look at the source of the noise. He froze when his eyes met the creature perched on the edge of his bed, and Jimin gasped for air as he stared in disbelief at the terrifying thing.

It looked like a dog, but this was most certainly no average canine. The creature’s flesh was dark brown, and hairless in patches; almost as if the skin was drooping off its frame in several places. It stood alert on four gangly legs, which ended in gigantic, large-clawed paws. Its mouth dripped with gooey saliva, which gathered in pools at Jimin’s feet, staining the covers. The most terrifying feature of all, however, was the thing’s eyes - which glowed a gruesome, glossy red as they bored into Jimin’s horrified face.

Man and beast locked eyes for several seconds, until without another sound, the disfigured dog jumped off the bed and walked over to the corner of Jimin’s bedroom. Jimin squeezed his burning eyes shut, but when nothing else happened for several seconds, he opened them again to see an empty room - no visible sign of the dog, which had apparently vanished just as mysteriously as it had appeared in Jimin’s closed-off bedroom. The young boy felt himself hyperventilating, and he knew if he didn’t stop soon that he would faint.

What the hell was that?!

He clutched at his chest, feeling it rapidly rise and fall in a pattern that was anything but rhythmic. Jimin didn’t know how to answer his previous question, but a lot of the ones that had plagued him for most of the evening had definitely just been answered.

He glanced at his phone, and contemplated calling Yoongi again, but he didn’t know what he could say that wouldn’t make him sound absolutely crazy. The clock on his bedside table informed Jimin that it was just after three in the morning, so he decided to just stay awake until it was a slightly more reasonable hour to make a phone call.

Praying that the snarling creature wouldn’t return before then, Jimin got up to turn on his light as he wondered if what he had just seen was even real. Maybe it had all just been some sort of hallucination, or even sleep paralysis. Both of those explanations seemed likely to Jimin, and more favorable than allowing himself to accept that he had in fact seen an actual, living monster at the foot of his very own bed - but something that caught his eye as he flicked on the overhead light made Jimin reconsider such easily believable interpretations.

Shimmering in a puddle at the corner of his bed was a slick pool of spit, the trails of which dripped viscously over the side of Jimin’s mattress. The young man shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts as he curled up in the quadrant of the bed that was farthest away from the supernatural ooze.

This is all so ridiculous. Did I really just convince myself that I saw some sort of ing paranormal rabid dog?

Something told Jimin that he hadn’t imagined the apparition at all, however, so he prepared himself for a sleepless few hours until the sun rose and he could call Yoongi.

✧✧✧

At seven o’clock, Jimin decided that he had waited long enough, and he picked up the phone with the intention to call his older friend to ask for some more advice. The ghastly dog hadn’t yet been back, but Jimin didn’t exactly feel safe in his little suburban cottage any more. Not that he was sure anywhere else would be much better if there were teleporting, canine-like beasts roaming around.

He dialed Yoongi’s number, but paused before pressing the “call” button. Jimin thought he knew what the skeptical, somewhat cynical older man would tell him, and he doubted that a repeat of the argument that had been presented to him last night would help in figuring out what to do in light of his current situation.

Instead, he dug around in his nightstand drawer for the two pieces of paper that Taehyung had given to him the day before.

I cannot believe I’m doing this.