Taehyung’s mother had warned her son about theunexpected twists of life and the twisted cruelty of fate. Taehyung being the only child had spent way too much time with his parents and at a very young age he had realized a couple of things; along with his adaption of ancient and horrible sense of humor.

Firstly, life was like the ocean. At times it was calm with soothing kiss like waves and sometimes it was a monster which in all ships into a void of nothingness, killing all hopes and dreams. Second of all, ghosts and vampires were nothing but spooks and bed time stories for kids who had more time to be afraid of nonexistent mythical creatures than real life problems.

Taehyung however was not afraid of either but then again, he was an exception.

Living alone was fantastic honestly. He could have pizza for breakfast, he could avoid doing the dishes for weeks and nobody would yell at him to put the toilet seat down after using it. It was a bliss but sometimes the quietness could be overwhelming. The silence was a curse and a blessing at the same time. The emptiness was not always welcomed by Taehyung.

Sometimes he wondered if he should have offered Jimin and Jungkook to live with him before they had decided to move in together. It was all too late now but Taehyung didn’t want to be a third wheel between the two love birds either. Not that he had commitment and trust issues, which Jimin disagreed to, he just hadn’t found someone who made his stomach feel weird and heart race at horrible speed making him feel suffocated.

Now though, Taehyung’s heart was racing faster than it should be and it was not in a very “shojo-anime  cheery blossom spring” setting kind of way.

Taehyung, one could say did not question things as much as normal people did. He let things happen and accepted things as they were. One could say it was a bit absurd that he didn’t question the anonymously prepared breakfast on his table every morning. That he didn’t bother to question the unexpected TV static or it turning on and off on its own or that neither did he question who had been watering his flower pot on a regular basis.

Taehyung had simply assumed it was Kim Seok Jin, his neighbor, who was also his cousin. One could say he was the dearest person in his life after his parents. After his parents, he was also the second person to own a spare key to his apartment due to numerous reasons but those are minor details, am I right? It was not that Jin had made him breakfast anonymously without even leaving a note but at this point Taehyung guessed, the elder did not find it necessary to leave a note.

TV statics were not something uncommon in his area but he may have been ignoring the automatic switching on and off the television for too long. Thunderstorms may have caused some odd behaviors before but it could barely explain why his house plants were completely taken care of when Jin barely had the time to take care of his own plants.

Taehyung had returned home after a long day of working at the cafe and the endless lectures of university professors, not that he was listening but ignoring was also a tiring task. Dinner, as for quite recently, was mysteriously prepared and served on his coffee table. Did he mention that the dinner didn’t quite taste like they were made by Jin? Of course they were healthy but it tasted very “old fashioned” and something very similar to his home town’s elderly people cooked.

It was when Taehyung was going to bite into the juicy prawn was when the lights had gone out. That was something peculiar as it was a commercial area and electricity shortage was never a problem unless the storms would mess up all the wirings in the area. Sure light had been flickering in his apartment for a while now, well ever since he had entered his apartment, but it couldn’t have indicated anything, right?

The door of Taehyung’s bedroom soon creaked open and the latter could hear the sound of his wooden floor creaking, nearing his living room space. His heart started racing faster than the cheetah catching its prey and he started regretting not locking his apartment door for the last few weeks or ever since he had started living on his own.

Yes, he actually did that. All hail the responsible young adult Kim Taehyung.

 “Kid, eat your vegetables.” he heard a faint whisper in the air. Vegetables? Eat his vegetables? The tone sounded absolutely frustrated and tired. That was something his mother and Jin always insisted him doing with the same tone but he was sure the voice didn’t belong to either. Taehyung swallowed a lump down his throat and retrieved his phone from the pocket of his saggy shorts.

He the flash light and inspected the room along with the hallway. In the glimpse of a few seconds, Taehyung swore he had seen a shadow escape the light. The person, if it was a human, apparently had unnatural speed and could vanish in thin air. Taehyung had removed himself from the sofa to search the entire apartment for a person, however no one was found.

One peculiar detail was that he was sure someone was following every one of his footstep behind him and in a very much synchronized manner at that. Each time he turned around to find the source of it, he was greeted with nothing but empty space.

It wasn’t until that Taehyung had returned to the living space, that he had found a person sitting on the floor on his knees and was intensely staring at his meal. Did he mention the person was glowing in the dark and was almost translucent? For some reason, his instincts made him want to scream and throw every object at the being in front of him.

God damn weak ancestors.

“Do you not like the way I cook vegetables? You always leave them behind.” the glowing being asked. Suddenly Taehyung’s tongue was tied and his thoughts were occupied by a thousand questions. The way he cooked the vegetables? Does that mean the glowing person had been cooking his meal for the past two weeks? Was he also taking care of his house plants? Was the glowing person the reason behind his magically washed dishes?

“I—I don’t—Who are you?” Taehyung stuttered into the sentence in fear and anxiety of the glowing human in his living room. “Oh how rude of me, it has been two weeks and I have not yet introduced myself. I am Jung Hoseok. I come from inside the lamp you rubbed. Also I am a ghost but that’s not important.” the glowing human, scratch that, ghost informed with a smile which was probably brighter than the glow his body had been emitting.

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 “So let me guess this straight, not that I am but, you are a ghost?” Taehyung asked, putting down his coffee mug as he tried not to rub his temples with his fingers in confusion. “Yeah.” Hoseok answered from the kitchen washing the dishes of Taehyung’s half eaten dinner. Hoseok made sure the other had wrapped them and kept them in the refrigerator as leftovers to be used for breakfast.

“You were stuck in the lamp for the past two hundred years and I set you free when I rubbed the lamp for an hour in hopes of getting myself a genie?” Taehyung asked again, this time entering the kitchen and dumping his coffee mug in the sink. “Excuse me but I am not your maid. Also why are you repeating what I have been telling you for the past hour? I am a ghost, I got stuck inside a lamp and I can’t remember why. Now, my ultimate goal was to just live here and haunt you but I also want to go into the afterlife because there is barely much for me to do here.” Hoseok informed with a sigh, even though he had complained earlier, he washed the coffee mug nevertheless.

“So, just asking but why have you been cooking me meals, washing the dishes and taking care of the house?” Taehyung now seemed much more confused than before and Hoseok for some reason wanted to yell in frustration because he had already explained all of these, twice before. “Because you are a messy young boy who skips showers and never cleans the bed along with other things. You might have a useful but you’re the most useless person I have seen.  Well at least the useless person I have seen since two hundred years ago. Also, I am not going to be situated in a place with piles of unwashed dishes and clothes with moles on cheese.”

Taehyung had heat boiling rising to his face due to the realization that Hoseok had watched him have with all the “one-night-stands” he had brought to his apartment in the past two weeks. Although Hoseok didn’t mention it, he assumed Hoseok had also peek on him in the shower, not that the ghost seemed to be a ert but Taehyung knew he was attractive. No one could resist his broad shoulders and thick thighs. Not even a ghost, he assured himself.

“So what do you w