“JOONMYEON!”

Joonmyeon jumped in surprise, the jerk making him spill the newly baked cookies off the tray and down on the counter in a mess of hot crumbs. “Oh, for Kyungsoo’s sake,” he mumbled under his breath, looking down at the now ruined cookies. This really wouldn’t do, he had an appointment in a couple of minutes. He sighed and turned around to face the opening to his domain just as Yifan came stomping inside. “Yes, Yifan?” he said, greeting his fellow demon. “I hope you have a good reason for screaming your head off like that. You startled me and now I have no fresh cookies for my next appointment.”

Yifan looked a little more annoyed than amused as he surveyed the ruined cookies on the counter. “Kris. You know we aren’t supposed to use our real names in public. And-“

“You started it!” Joonmyeon exclaimed in annoyance. If Yifan wanted Joonmyeon to use his demon name, he really shouldn’t have started out screaming Joonmyeon’s real name at the top of his lungs.

Yifan’s eyes widened and a look of slight constipation bloomed on his face. “Suho,” he began with a growl. “Kyungsoo sent me and he is not happy.”

“Kyungsoo is never happy. You have to be perpetually unhappy to accept the job as ruler of the Underworld,” Joonmyeon said, rolling his eyes. He turned around to see if any of the ruined cookies could be salvaged, not interested in whatever it was that had Kyungsoo’s in a twist this time. The cookies were mostly mush from being dropped while they were still warm, so with a sigh, he went to his walk-in freezer and got out one of the batches of cookies he had premade when time and the number of incoming souls allowed it.

“While that may be true, he is your boss. You are screwing up on the job and creating chaos down here!” Yifan argued in annoyance.

As if to prove his point, a very thin young man entered the kitchen with a bright smile. “Suho hyung, did I smell your cookies~?”

Joonmyeon turned and gave the deceased a sad smile. “You did, my dear. Kris decided to startle me, though, so there are only crumbs left. I can’t offer that to my new soul.”

“Sehun, for crying out loud, you don’t belong here! You died from cancer, not suicide, you belong under Baekhyun’s jurisdiction. You are not supposed to wander around like this,” Kris said, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a pained expression.

“Did someone say cookies?” An old man with loose teeth and liver spots adorning his greyish skin came into the kitchen, brandishing a cane that he strictly didn’t need in the afterlife, and sent Yifan a wide smile that almost made his dentures fall out.

“Chanyeol, natural causes, not suicide, how many times do I have to tell you?” Yifan said with a strained voice.

The old man lifted his cane and whacked Yifan’s head earning him a hiss from the demon. “Such imprudence. Treat your senior with respect, young man.”

Joonmyeon had to hide a laugh at that: Yifan was over four thousand years old, so even though he looked twenty-five, he was actually Chanyeol’s senior by a whole lot.

“If all of you stuck up demons treated us as nicely as young Joonmyeon here, perhaps we would listen to your screeching,” Chanyeol continued to lecture while Sehun stole one of the new cookies Joonmyeon had managed to heat up in record time.

Yifan’s face was red with anger now and he looked like he might condemn Chanyeol to the lowest fires of Hell. While this wasn’t really new when it came to Chanyeol, Joonmyeon had made it his mission to keep that from happening, and so far he had been successful. He quickly grabbed a handful of cookies and handed half to Chanyeol and half to Sehun before waving them towards the door. “It was good seeing you, but I have a new soul coming in a minute. Stop by anytime, yeah?” he said with another wave before closing the door behind him so no other lost souls would wander into his domain while he was greeting the incoming one.

Yifan glared after the two and took a deep breath to calm himself before speaking. “I know you mean well, but this is not our job, Myeon. We are supposed to punish them and make sure they don’t create trouble while they are here. Moving between jurisdictions is trouble,” he said slowly, leaning his hip against the kitchen counter.

“Why is that? They are not creating trouble, they just want cookies and tea and someone to talk to,” Joonmyeon said, filling the kettle with water before checking his watch.

“When they walk outside their jurisdiction, the demon in charge of them cannot keep an eye on them. When their supervisor cannot keep an eye on them, the souls have all the time and possibilities in the world to revolt and take over the Underworld because they are unhappy and that would lead to pure chaos,” Yifan explained, speaking slowly and clearly as if he was talking to a child.

“And you never considered simply changing things up down here to keep them from being unhappy? You know, be a little proactive?” Joonmyeon asked, adding a bag of tea to the water. He’d have to go Overground soon and get some more of those, he was down to only three hundred bags and that would only last him a week at best. “If they aren’t unhappy, why would they revolt? Stop making them unhappy and you don’t have to worry about that.”

“We’ve been over this before; we don’t make the rules. Tao did, and Kyungsoo has chosen to continue that direction so far,” Yifan said, patience wearing thin.

“Tao was removed for being a sadistic who tortured souls unnecessarily. Do you really think the line of action he put down is the best one?” Joonmyeon shot back, not having a lot of respect to spare for the demon who had been his boss until recently. Yifan opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by a loud ring and a whooshing sound as the outline of a young man appeared in the incoming area of the demon’s domain which made Joonmyeon’s eyes widen. “Shoot, I forgot to keep track of time.”

The new soul’s outline became more and more solid until it was no longer see-through. The man was young, probably in his late teens, early twenties. His hair was almost silver though he was definitely Korean. His body was lean, yet muscular, and even standing still there was a certain grace to it.

“Ah, hello!” Joonmyeon greeted with a wide smile, catching the clipboard that appeared from thin air a second later. He sent Kris a pointed look which made the other demon roll his eyes as he turned to the door and slipped out of Joonmyeon’s domain. Joonmyeon took a second to look over the clipboard in his hand, running over the information. “Kim Jongin, 21, professional ballet dancer, is that correct?” he asked, looking up from the clipboard.

The young man gave a curt nod, scowling as he looked around the room. He looked thoroughly unimpressed with everything his eyes landed on. The action didn’t go unnoticed by Joonmyeon, who had put a lot of time and effort into making his domain as welcoming as possible; apparently, that hadn’t worked in the case of the young dancer.

“My name is Suho and I’m head of the suicide jurisdiction here,” he said, sending Jongin his calming, welcoming smile; as always, it was as genuine as could be, but he had still practised to make sure it was the right amount of calming. After all, all of his souls had committed suicide right before arriving there, so he had to be able to calm them and make them feel more at home than they had in the world above. “Kyungsoo is the head of the underworld. He looks a lot scarier than he actually is. Cookie?”

Jongin looked at the plate of warm cookies that the... demon? Suho held out to him. While they did look good, he wasn’t stupid enough to accept anything from strangers; years of competitive dancing had taught him as much. He had been sixteen when he had gotten the lead role in his first professional ballet performance. He had worked so hard to get it and even harder after he got it so he would be perfect. On the day of the performance, the mother of his understudy had given him a little basket of cookies that he had scarfed down in an attempt to kill the butterflies in his stomach. They had been laced with laxatives and he had been unable to go on stage that evening, causing the director to give the understudy the lead from then on while Jongin was demoted to understudy. It hadn’t been the first time rivals had tried to poison him in one way or another, but he had refused any food from other people since then. He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms across his chest.

“Well, okay... tea?” Joonmyeon asked, not letting Jongin’s silence deter him in the slightest. He was determined to make all of his souls feel at home, even if they were grumpy dead dancers. “You know, it can be a bit of a challenge to some people when they find themselves here in the underworld. If you want, I’ve started different therapy groups depending on the method of suicide. Of course, it’s completely voluntary and everyone is sworn to silence, so you don’t have to deal with other people asking why you choose your particular way of suicide. Though, to be frank with you, overdose is one of the more common causes, so people would probably not ask you regardless,” he said thoughtfully, putting the tea and cookies down on the table before ushering Jongin over to it so they could sit down. “No one but the demons and Kyungsoo has access to your file, and even they should not look through it unless something happens to me or to you and they need information of some sort to help you,” he hurried to assure. “It’s completely up to you whether you want to tell people what your life was like and how it ended or not.” Since Jongin seemed determined to not talk at all, Joonmyeon took a sip of his tea and reached for a cookie, not wanting them to go to waste after all the trouble he had gone through to procure them after Yifan’s loudly announced entrance.

Jongin’s narrowed eyes followed Joonmyeon’s movement as the demon bit into one of the cookies. When he was sure it wasn’t poisoned, he reached out and took one as well. It was warm and fudgy and really good. He chewed on it thoughtfully, looking around the room again. This was not exactly how he imagined the underworld. He shot the demon another look. Surely he must be insane. Therapy groups? Seriously? For dead people? He was dead right? It wasn’t some sort of crazy reality prank show?

Joonmyeon studied the gloomy dancer as he looked around and then shot him a look. It wasn’t unusual that his souls were gloomy, but most of them lightened up a little when they realised the underworld wasn’t all that bad and that whatever made them suffer in life was now gone. “Of course, if you’d rather just talk one on one, you are always welcome to come see me. Unless I have an incoming soul, then you might have to wait a little while,” he said, pursing his lips in thought. Then he shook his head gently. It didn’t look like Jongin was in any mood to talk, which made him a little sad, but he didn’t want to force him. “If you want, I can show you to your room now?” he offered, thinking maybe Jongin just needed a little time to get accustomed to everything. He smiled when Jongin nodded at that, standing up and beckoning the new soul to follow him. Surely