“I’d like to start by asking why you two are being so secretive,” declared Taehyung. “If you’d just be good and cooperate, this would all be going a lot more smoothly for everyone.”

“Well, if I told you everything, then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore,” reminded Jin. “I know you people don’t tend to understand this, but some of us have secrets that we would rather be kept off the internet and out of the eyes of the public.”

There was something like hostility in Jin’s measured voice, but the eldest man was sitting patiently at the card table across from Hoseok, his hands folded gently as he addressed the frustrated cryptozoologist.

“Whaddaya mean by that?” snapped Taehyung.

“I mean that I do not respect your profession, and I think that it’s a shame you don’t see the harm you’ve caused,” replied Jin thickly, the strain visible on his jaw.

That was certainly cryptic, and Jimin felt the all too familiar swirl of confusion setting in as the two men squared off, staring at each other as Jin sat and Taehyung stood with clenched fists.

“Jin, you might as well just tell them,” advised Yoongi as he stepped into the light from the single bulb. “They’re not gonna let us go until you do - and even if they release us, Jimin will probably just run back here and tell ’em everything as soon as he gets the chance.”

Jimin had forgotten that Jin promised to tell him everything later, and he realized with surprise that Yoongi was probably right. He needed Taehyung and Namjoon’s help to process anything to do with cryptids, and it would be hard to keep himself from letting them in on whatever secrets Jin had yet to divulge. There was contempt in Yoongi’s voice as he spat Jimin’s name, and the young man shamefully accepted that the what the elder was saying was the truth.

“I suppose you’re right,” sighed Jin begrudgingly. “And maybe telling them will put a stop to all this before it’s too late.”

“Too late?”

That was slightly more ominous than Jimin had been expecting. He understood if Jin wanted to keep his identity a secret for privacy’s sake, but to suggest that they could all be in danger from some other source… Well, that was something that the younger man hadn’t even considered.

✧✧✧

Jin stayed in his chair as he lowered his head in defeat, breathing deeply for a few seconds in preparation for the potential repercussions of what he was about to say. Jimin was rapt with attention, and he found himself leaning forward like a curious child as he waited for Jin to start.

“Taehyung, I may not be happy about it, but pretty much everything you’ve said is true,” revealed Jin.

Jimin expected Taehyung to make some sort of loud whoop, but the younger man only pumped his fist, celebrating a silent victory as he threw a glance at Hoseok that said “I told you so.”

“I am a Guardian,” Jin continued.

His face was upset, almost as if admitting this was painful for the oldest man. Jimin felt his knees weaken inexplicably, and wished that Hoseok would get up so he could have his chair. Jin’s tether felt fearful and sad, and Jimin didn’t like seeing his friend like this - even if the latter had been lying to him for the past decade or more.

“I’m exactly what you think I am, and, yes, I was sent here to watch over Jimin.”

“Score one for Kim Taehyung!” shouted the auburn-haired man as his excitement became too overwhelming to contain. “Don’t you love it when I’m right, Hobi?”

“Usually not,” mumbled Hoseok.

“Please, let me finish,” commanded Jin. “You have no idea how much trouble I’ll be in for telling you this.”

He took another deep breath before he continued. Apparently there was more.

“The reason I was sent to watch over Jimin is because of ‘researchers’ like Taehyung and Namjoon,” explained Jin. “My people are a very ancient race, and - just as your friend has indicated, Jimin - Guardians are sworn to defend and protect those whom they watch.

“Several decades ago, before I was born, my ancestors hypothesized that many of the supernatural creatures - or ‘cryptids’ as you call them - that inhabited this plane of existence were essentially the result of human imagination.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” interrupted Taehyung. “You’re saying that by thinking about these monsters, we’re willing them into existence?”

“Not exactly,” responded Jin. “It’s more like… the power of belief - the power of fear - is what gives them the energy to manifest.”

“That makes sense,” murmured Jimin.

It was much like how Taehyung had explained the physicality of the hellhound portal, which had taken on the clichéed appearance of a haunted house. The dogs and the mansion both needed a certain amount of energy to exist - either in part or in whole - in their plane of existence. And it made as much sense as anything to Jimin that that energy could be collected in the form of human fear.

✧✧✧

“So you see,” Jin continued, “our mission obviously became to rid this world of such fears, in an attempt to make it a safer, more pleasant place for the humans we loved so dearly.”

He took a moment to glance at Jimin, and then Yoongi, before returning his gaze to the empty card table, which he picked at nervously as he disclosed more information.

“We were to start at the top - with the most powerful of all Sensors: the Ultimates.” Jin looked up at Jimin and Jungkook, who were both standing on the edge of their toes, captivated. “The idea was that… if we could prevent the new generation from tapping into their abilities, then the monsters that they were naturally able to Sense and see - the most powerful ones - would gradually disappear from the Earth as no one was frightened of them anymore.”

“So you killed my ing parents and kidnapped all the Ultimate Sensors?!” Jimin howled at Jin. “And then what? ing brainwashed us so we couldn’t use our powers?”

“I… No! Jimin, I didn’t do that,” panicked Jin. “My only assignment was to watch over you and make sure you stayed out of trouble.”

“Yeah? Well, you did a pretty job of it!” attacked Jimin. “You failed your mission, and ‘your people’ are still murderers for killing my mom and dad.”

“They didn’t kill your family, idiot,” barked Yoongi. His voice was harsh even as he looked at the other man with sympathy. “Were you listening at all? Guardians protect humans; they don’t go around killing people off!”

“What if the lives of a few needed to be sacrificed to save many?” Namjoon was playing Devil’s advocate, posing a painfully relevant question from where he stood in the shadows. “What happens then? Do you kill them?”

“Of course not,” assured Jin. “Jimin, I honestly don’t know where your parents are. As I said, my only goal was to prevent you from realizing your potential as a Sensor. Wherever they are, they haven’t been killed by me or any of my relatives.”

“That’s all well and good,” Taehyung in. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you tried to stifle Jimin’s powers for no reason other than to test the theory that it would rid the world of monsters.”

“Tae, you’re, like, the king of theories,” interjected Jimin. “How can you be so hypocritical all of a sudden?”

“Because my theories unravel the mysteries of the universe,” argued Taehyung. “This is… oppression! It’s - it’s silencing some of the greatest, most interesting research ever done about unbelievable, fantastical creatures. It’s destroying my livelihood! It’s-”

“It’s saving your and everyone around you’s assses,” interrupted Yoongi. “How could you be selfish enough to keep terrible monsters alive and wreaking havoc when we have the power to get rid of them just by ignoring the damn things?”

“But they don’t go around wreaking havoc,” disputed Taehyung. “That’s why it’s so difficult to even get people to believe that these creatures are real!”

“And when they do, it perpetuates a cycle of fear and uncontrolled energy, which allows these beings to continue to exist,” pushed Jin. “What happens when more people start reading your blogs, hm? When they begin to think about the creatures you present evidence of - and then start having encounters of their own. What happens to the level of fear-produced energy in the world when millions of people are cowering from paranormal monsters?”

“What happens when people aren’t aware of the monsters even though they’re there?” Hoseok spoke evenly as he stared at Jin from across the table. “What if by silencing people like Taehyung, your people take away humanity’s only chance to protect themselves?”

✧✧✧

“You people aren’t listening,” growled Yoongi. “If you don’t think about them, they go away. Simple as that.”

“Or, at least, that was the theory,” muttered Jin. He rushed to say more, lest Taehyung or the others try to jump on the statement in an attempt to discredit him. “But all the evidence was supporting it. The Guardians had succeeded in isolating the latest generation of Ultimate Sensors, and their powers were kept in check for nearly two decades.”

“Until Kookie and I started using ours,” deduced Jimin, and Jin nodded his head.

“Yes, and that also explains why Jungkook thinks that my tether feels familiar,” concurred the older man. “Apparently some of his powers leaked through as a child, and he was able to detect the presence of his assigned Guardian - though he didn’t have any way of knowing what any of it actually was.”

“That’s how he found the hellhounds back in the woods, too,” posited Taehyung. “He told us that he was ‘drawn to’ the portal that night. Tapping into his Sensor abilities even though he had no idea what they were.”

This was all very interesting, but Jimin couldn’t help feeling overshadowed yet again. He’d seen glimpses of monsters, he realized, when he thought back to his childhood. But the older man hadn’t come close to possessing the same talents as Jungkook had in early, elementary youth.

“During that time of rest, some of the creatures started to disappear or weaken,” continued Jin. “The most elite of supernatural creatures couldn’t be tracked, so they started to lose power. They started to fade from the minds of society.”

Jimin hadn’t even heard of hellhounds before Taehyung told him about them - and the same was true for many of the creatures the younger man had mentioned or shown him and Jungkook over the past several days. Taehyung was obviously knowledgeable about a whole host of cryptids and monsters - both paranormal and therefore invisible to the average human, and more garden-variety creatures like the water sprite that could be seen by anyone. However, the orange-haired man was also evidently in the minority; as fantastical creatures such as these certainly didn’t pop up in casual dinner-table conversations.

✧✧✧

“That loss of power might explain why the hellhound didn’t kill Jimin right away,” muttered Taehyung, deep in contemplation. “And possibly even why I was able to see it after hurting it with a rock. The poor things were already slightly weaker than they should’ve been to begin with.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call them ‘poor things,’” contended Jimin. “And you didn’t tell me I was supposed to die instantly!”

“I figured it would only upset you,” shrugged Taehyung. “Why think about how close you came to getting teleported to a nightmare dimension when you could just accept that you’re alive and move on with your life?”

Jimin might have been happy to agree with that assessment if it didn’t mean being complacent with another one of Taehyung’s deceptions and lies. He suddenly wondered if there was anything else the young man was hiding from him when Jin spoke again, interrupting Jimin’s thoughts of potential accusations.

“The point is that these creatures are dangerous,” finished Jin. “And they could pose a serious threat to humans everywhere if the fear surrounding them is not kept in check.”

“So why don’t you let us the out of here,” Yoongi supplemented, “and we can all forget that this ever happened?”

“What’s gonna happen to Jimin and Kookie after that?” pressed Taehyung. “They’re kind of a wrench in your plan now, Jin - aren’t they?”

“It’s not my place to decide what happens,” Jin answered. “But I can assure you they’ll at least be safe. Our goal is to protect - never to hurt.”

“If you want to protect something, then why not the guard noble pursuit of knowledge?” Taehyung challenged. “We should learn more about these creatures so that not if but when they become a problem - because you’ll never be able to eliminate fear - we’ll be able to deal with it instead of hiding under the covers, waiting for the monsters under our bed to disappear like scared little kids.”

“That’s an admirable idea,” admitted Jin. “But it’s far too dangerous. It’s better to get rid of as many monsters as we can.”

“They’re not all dangerous!” insisted Taehyung. “You want to destroy so many amazing creatures just because you’re scared of ’em! Wouldn’t it be better if we were able to figure out a way to live harmoniously with these things instead of pretending like they were never even there?”

The orange-haired man was about to go on; to provide further support for the idea that not all of the creatures he studied were threatening. But at that moment, an alarm sounded - signaling that the boy was devastatingly wrong.