Hospitals were always so dreary, despite the white walls and tiled floors illuminated by fluorescent lights. The smell of decay and death clung to the air, poorly masked by antiseptics and alcohol. Humans could detect that a heaviness hung around places meant for the wellness of others, where so often things went wrong and lives were left hanging in the balance. For a reaper, it felt like a wasteland. There was never any one way of predicting just how things would really, truly go with their assigned humans and the hospital had always been a grey space. A few of the reapers were continuously posted within the walls, meant to secure the souls of those that were departed before their time. However, even for the three reapers continuously on watch, there were visitations from those that were actually meant to die within the walls of the building. 

Jinhwan personally hated the way every corner felt like suffering and pain. If it had been up to him they would never have been a place like this for the humans. They would all live happy, healthy lives for as long a possible and he would only ever have the ancient people who had lived a full life. It was his own personal torture, or at least that's what he assumed, that he would have to watch people of all ages leave the realm of the living and join him on the other side. Plus, it was rather morbid for him to think this way, if there wasn't hospitals and death he would literally be out of a job and probably have his soul repossessed and put into some other less attractive body. That was one thing he definitely could not have, no matter how distraught he felt over the misfortune of others. 

As he trudged down the hallways, the short blonde took a glance at his hand. There was an appointment at the ready in room 483 and he should be there to collect them at any moment. Jinhwan was slow in his pace, the only times he was actually good at his job was when people died in the hospitals on schedule. It seemed to make his life a lot easier and it wasn't the first time he had thought about joining the three Watchers that constantly roamed the halls keeping the stray souls kept together. But he kind of lived for the thrill of it all, but there had been more than one time that his boss had gotten on to him about being too frivolous. 

Passing by closed doors, he didn't stop to look in on people, but when he saw one open he felt compelled to slow his steps. There was one room, someone that looked to be on life support. That never actually made Jinhwan all too happy. It was only prolonging the suffering of the people, especially with all those tubes and wires.  A young man laid on the bed, perfectly still with monitors hooked up to his brain and heart as oxygen was pumped into his lungs. Clearly he was brain dead and he was alone. There was no one there to comfort him as his soul lay dormant in a paralyzed body. It made the reaper sick to his stomach. 

Humans hardly realized that keeping the person locked inside that meat locker they called a body was only detrimental to their souls' health. It caused them to deteriorate and sometimes even disappear entirely if they didn't let the person go in time. Jinhwan was a bleeding heart, he knew he was, but he liked to think he saw the world in a different light than everyone else. Or at least that's what he had to internally tell himself to keep from thinking about what he was doing. Glancing at the chart that was stuck outside the door, the youth had only been there for two weeks, his soul still intact but possibly emotionally scarred. Being trapped was never a good thing, however sometimes, without the brain to process what was going on, they just assumed that they were in a deep sleep. 

Glancing around, the petite reaper checked his watch, double checking the time to know he had enough minutes to do at least one good deed for the day. Stepping further into the room, Jinhwan continued to look around, taking in the barren room that held a singular flower bouquet in a vase and a small stuffed bear. It was cute, someone cared for him at least. There was a slight warmth that came from deep within the resting boy's body, otherwise the room was cold and empty of pretty much any emotions. It made Jihwan shudder as he made his was closer to the bed. 

The moment was serene almost, he looked peaceful in his eternal slumber, but the reaper knew... he just knew that something wasn't right. The boy was trapped and no one else seemed to realize it or even care. His outlook was already bleak, assuming that he would just end up dead in a few weeks, maybe months. A part of Jinhwan couldn't, wouldn't wait that long. He refused it. The eternal youth could no longer stand it and began to glance around the room, searching for something he could do. Technically he wasn't allowed to snatch a soul from a still living body, that was against all of the rules that had been engrained in him. But then again there was always loopholes and he had found ways around them more than once. 

Walking up to the main machine that was keeping him alive, Jinhwan looked it over before deciding to use his own type of magic to quicken the process. Narrowing his eyes, he placed his hand on the machine and focused the energy he usually used to collect souls to manipulate the electrical flow to the equipment. At first it did nothing, just caused the screen to glitch and stutter for a few moments but it didn't stop working outright. Technology was a blessing, but not when it hindered him from doing what he felt was his job. So with a frustrated sound, he pushed more of his energy into the electrical device and watched as it shuddered and shut down completely. A smile crept on his face as no alarms went off and all of the equipment in the room stopped working entirely. Even the overhead lights. 

Well that wasn't exactly comforting... but he could see the soul start to separate from the body and that alone had been his goal. Reaching out, he carefully began to pull the essence of the dead man from his vessel and smiled at the confused looking soul that was quick to glance back at his body and grip at his chest to ensure that this was indeed real. "Where am I? Where's my bike... I was just riding it." The voice that echoed in the space between them was rich and deep, sending pleasing tingles down Jinhwan's spine. 

The reaper offered up a gentle smile as he waved around slightly. "This is a hospital, you looked to have been brain dead for some time. I'm sure your family was keeping you al-" 

"Family? I have no family." The words cut between them and his dark eyes narrowed instantly. He may have been in a coma (a soul coma as some called it) for quite some time, but he wasn't stupid. "The only person who's cared about me ever is my boyfriend. Where is he? What have you done? Am I dead? I can't leave him. He won't last without me." There was the anger that Jinhwan was used to, the blatant ignorance to what he had been subjected to. It made the temper in the shorter male flare up and he didn't seem to care that this dead guy was a whole head taller than him. 

He cleared his throat politely and leveled him with a piercing gaze. "Sir, I don't call the shots, I just do as I'm told." It was a blatant lie and it burned on the tip of his tongue, but the patient had no reason to know that. He was better off this was in Jinhwan's humble opinion. "If you'll follow me, I have one more person to pick up and I'll explain everything all at once." 

Turning on his heel sharply, he walked out of the door, leaving no room for argument between them. He could always leave the gangly er there to figure out the afterlife on his own, he seemed stubborn, but Jinhwan knew that he would follow eventually, they always did. When he stepped out into the hallway however, he was greeted by the grim features of one of his fellow Reapers. A smile lit up his face and he waved slightly just to be on the safe side. Who knows what all had happened. 

"Did you cause the power shortage?" The question rung through his ears and took a full moment to comprehend what was being said. Looking down the hallway, he suddenly realized that yes... it was oddly darker than it had been before. Most of the lights were off and it seemed awfully quiet. 

Letting his shoulder roll in a shrug, Jinhwan feigned innocence as he puckered his lips slightly. "I didn't even know there was a power shortage. Did you guys lose anyone to it?" He was truly concerned for a moment, maybe he had just given himself more paperwork. They always tried to blame these extra deaths on him anyway. 

"Just this room and another next door." Ah! So his human had died and he needed to go and collect the soul as soon as possible. "Oddly though, HQ reports that neither of them were supposed to go like this. Especially this one." There was a moment of silence between them, Jinhwan glancing in the room where the patient stood stubbornly at his bedside refusing to move. He would collect him in a moment. "Jeon Wonwoo was supposed to recover and go on to live a happy, full life. The coma was meant to bring him and his boyfriend, Byun Baekhyun closer together and show that they can survive apart but still need one another." 

Oh . 

The temporary look of sheer terror crossed his features and Jinhwan swallowed thickly. He hated this part, the part where he truly did seem to always screw something up. Standing quietly for a moment, he couldn't seem to wrap his head around this one. The boy had looked brain dead, he was even acting as though he had been. "So... uh, he was in a coma then?" His words were hesitant, soft even as he looked over at the man clearly upset as he continued to stare at his lifeless body. Sadly, there was hardly ever any going back after it had been this long. 

Somehow during the exchange, nurses had rushed in and checked on all of the equipment and vitals of the patients in both rooms, but it was indeed too late. Blearily, Jinhwan pushed past the other reaper and into his assigned room, collecting the frail old woman who had passed pleasantly all things considered. It was a moment after he helped her to her next destination that he returned to the young man who was suddenly no longer alone. The room had one single doctor and a small brunette who had a look of shock on his face. 

"You said it was minor... that after awhile he could recover." His voice was shrill, anger ripping through his entire body and Jinhwan winced as Wonwoo hovered nearby, looking just as angry as he heard the promises the medical team had made. "How could have this happened? Was it your stuff that did it to him? Did it stop working or something?" 

The doctor looked apologetic, doing his best to explain as Jinhwan inched his was further into the room. It took only a second for Wonwoo to notice him, leaving Baekhyun's side to glare down at him with the rage of a man robbed of his entire life. Guilt was already starting to eat at Jinhwan as he waited for the retaliation. "Is there nothing you can do? This is permanent right?" 

It was bitter resentment, but it was also borderline acceptance. The reaper was slow to shake his head, closing his eyes slightly before he muttered softly, "I'm so sorry for this. If things had been different... possibly I would have changed them for you." Except he had already changed them, permanently and there was no going back from that. "If there's anything we could do..." He trails off, knowing he would now have to explain everything to the very angry man, but it would all come in due time. 

"Watch over him... he's fragile. More than I ever was..." Wonwoo's voice cracked, looking over at his boyfriend who was openly crying and smudging his eyeliner in the process. "He'll do something stupid, I know he will..." 

Jinhwan paused, chewing on his bottom lip in thought before he smiled softly. "Where there's a way you could keep an eye on him too. You could join us... you don't have to be a soul collector like me, there's other jobs. It seems like you would do really well in Crisis Management if you know what it's like already. Plus it would be a way to keep an eye on him, especially right now since his world has been totally flipped upside down." The smaller male winced slightly at himself, knowing fully that it was his fault but he would never, ever tell that to Wonwoo who would probably try to kill him again. 

There was a moment that Wonwoo clearly contemplated his options, weighing them in his head before his gaze cut from the love of his life back to the man that had stole it from him completely. "Would I be able to really look after him?" There was a softness to his voice that Jinhwan hadn't heard before and it made him smile softly. The reaper had never known that sort of love before, but it seemed at though Wonwoo would do whatever it took to look after Baekhyun even though he was technically already gone. 

"Of course you can, I'll even make sure our best supervisor in Crisis helps you out. Heck, even I'll check in on him for you." A smile pressed at Jinhwan's lips and it seemed like it would all be okay despite the fact there was one extra soul now working in the afterlife. Everyone always swore that they wouldn't have half of their man power if it wasn't for him. "Now... if you would, please follow me. We have to register you to the higher ups to get this in motion." 

The travel time back to the office was long, tedious even as it was filled with ceaseless questions from Wonwoo followed by long sullen silences until he thought up something else to ask. Jinhwan preferred for people to talk, but not so sporadically like they spent more time in their head than actually speaking outright. When they arrived at headquarters, he breezed through to the elevators and began to walk Wonwoo through the process of becoming a Crisis Prevention Analyst. Was it annalist? He could never really remember. 

"Usually people have to go through the training of Gender and ual Orientation, but lucky you, I'm gonna let you skip all of that mess and go straight to working with Jongdae. He's a real hard , but usually Crisis is pretty laid back. If they let everything get personal they would go absolutely mental and I can't blame them at all." Jinhwan was speaking rapidly, moving his hands as he spoke in the very matter of fact tone before he led the taller man down a hallway from the elevator to what appeared to be a very cluttered office space. 

It was always a mess, everything disorganized and all over the place, but Jinhwan supposed he really couldn't blame them. Everything changed so quickly in here that there was no telling what would exactly happen next. These were the lives where everything hung in the balance, especially for ones with borderline mental disorders. That was another boat entirely that the reaper wasn't even sure he wanted to necessarily think about. 

Jongdae was bent over a desk, hair sticking every which way like his drug his fingers through it one too many times in the past hour. His rimmed glasses were slipping off his nose before he shoved them back up when there was a knock on the door and he looked up to see who had came in. The anger was immediate and Jinhwan was starting to think he just had that affect on people for whatever reason. "You. Do you know the mess you made? The kid you killed off had a very unstable partner, did you know that? He's on watch now and who the hell knows how long he's going to last. Do you ever even think before you do something?" The words were biting and it took all that he could do to keep his features calm. 

"Ah... hi to you too. This here is Wonwoo. I'm sure you've heard about him." As soon as the name left his mouth, the anger that was radiated at the reaper significantly lessened and Jongdae gave him an apologetic look. "I told him he could work here... seeing as he wanted to keep an eye on his boyfriend and all." 

Jinhwan had already dug himself a deep enough hole and was quick to make his exit, leaving behind two angry, sullen souls to sort out their qualms together. He needed peace and quiet and knew exactly where to go to find it. The trip down the elevator went without incident and he was walking into the Cupid's Department with heavy shoulders. The reaper knew that most people thought of him as careless, but deep down it was simply because he cared too much that led him to make so many mistakes. It was exhausting most of the time. He was known for his failures rather than his good deeds. 

Half of the desks were empty, but the two he looked forward to seeing were sitting in their chairs, one bent over his paperwork while the other stared at his phone as he took in the notifications he was receiving. Briefly, Jinhwan wondered if Wonwoo and Baekhyun had been assigned to either of them, but by now, he knew Junhoe would be throwing a fit if Wonwoo had been under his care. So it was definitely not his... but the way Yunhyeong let his eyebrows furrow it raised concern. 

"How's it goin'?" Jinhwan plastered a smile on his face, plopping his bottom down on the corner of Junhoe's desk just enough to agitate him since he hadn't looked up once to acknowledge his presence since he had entered the room. "It looks like Yunnie is thinking too hard which is never a good thing. What's up?" He was doing his best to keep his tone casual and light, making sure not to rise suspicion out of either of them. But he could tell from the way the Cupid glared at him that he knew something was up, Junhoe always seemed to know when something was going on. 

"Jus' got a hella bunch of notifications." Yunhyeong was frowning a bit as he sat up and started to go through his files immediately. "One died because of some freak thing in a hospital, a shortage that they're blaming on a reaper." He snorted softly and shook his head as he took out another file, both names ones that Jinhwan recognized from that night. "His partner went off the deep end it seems... jumped on the metro tracks and electrocuted himself not even half an hour after he found out." Another huff, one that sounded vaguely like amusement, passed the nicer Cupid's lips. "It seems they'll both be working here from the sounds of it." 

A shrug later, Jinhwan was sitting with as innocent of a face as he could muster before Junhoe sneered at him. "You did it didn't you? You went and pulled the poor guy's plug and now him and his partner are dead. Brilliant, you're utterly brilliant did you know that?" 

Jinhwan could hear the condescending tone of Junhoe's voice and it only drove the stake of guilt further into his gut. "Yea... but I thought..." There was another pause, no need for him to explain himself. They already saw him as the villain anyway. Most people usually did. "It's over with, nothing can change it now." He hopped up from the desk, making his exit quickly. There was no reason for him to stick around, it seemed like the couple would be reunited anyway so it wasn't all bad right? Right. Those were the things he had to tell himself to keep from falling into an oblivion of depression. 

OH WOW GUYS. Hi, its been over a year. I hope this makes up for the year hiatus. 3k words of sadness and depression. Ohp. Also we're introducing people from outside of iKon just because I can't have just 7 guys doing everything. There's many many layers to this universe, so I'm going to add in people from a few other groups. Mostly ones I listen to. If you don't know who some people are, gimme a pip in the comments and I'll reply with a visual of them. :D