Jinki has never been surer of anything in his life. The platforms are empty, most people inside sitting around tables with people they hold dear. Snow is falling softly from the sky, making a beautiful exit. Jinki closes his eyes when the light of the train ahead shows itself and he counts 1-2-3 before he opens his eyes, judges the distance and jumps. He feels the impact the second the train hits him and then nothing. Everything turns black.
 

✕✕✕
 

“So messy,” a voice says with a snarl. The sound of a broom sweeping over a linoleum floor in a scratchy tone is the next thing Jinki hears and he slowly opens his eyes. The room he’s in has black walls, most of them covered with monitors that shows all parts of the world. He catches a glimpse of a hospital room before the screen shimmers and shows a forest instead.

“Always on my shift. Hey Taemin, you take November, right, nothing happens in November, they said and now I have to clean this mess like I don’t have enough to do tonight.”

Jinki turns his head towards the voice. A young man is sweeping the floor that looks spotless. The mess he’s talking about must be imaginary dust because Jinki doesn’t think he sees anything else. The screens shimmer again and changes location again, catching Jinki’s attention when it shows police and paramedics on an all too familiar train station. That’s when it hits him. He’s really dead.

“Hey trainwreck!” the voice says in front of him and Jinki jumps from his sitting position in surprise. The man tilts his head with an annoyed look and makes sweeping motions with his broom towards Jinki.

“Where am I?” Jinki asks and the man hits Jinki’s leg lightly to get him moving towards a large door behind him. Jinki hadn’t even noticed the door before. The man continues to urge Jinki towards it but he doesn’t answer the question.

“Hey Minho!” he shouts when he opens the door and pushes Jinki inside a new room. This one is in wood, wooden floors and wooden walls in a soft orange lighting. The furniture in it looks a little like what Jinki would imagine in an old office in an old castle. Something from the 1850’s. A man sits behind a large desk and he looks up with surprise when the young man calls for him.

“What are you doing here Taemin?” he asks and Jinki begins to connect their names to their faces.

“I got a trainwreck for you,” Taemin says and chuckles a little, satisfied with his way of addressing Jinki. Minho scrunches up his nose.

“Be nice to the dead.”

This seems to be an intern joke because Taemin snorts in laughter and pats Jinki’s shoulder and pushes him towards the desk in the same movement. With a loud sound, the door behind them slams closed and there’s silent in the room. Jinki assumes Taemin has left them alone, so he decides to try again.

“Where am I? I’m dead, right?”

Minho looks through his desk for a pair of glasses and a huge bundle of papers and he, too, ignores Jinki’s questions. Instead he flips through his papers until he finds what he’s looking for.

“Lee Jinki, born on December 14 1989, age 27, dead November 24 2017.”

Minho looks up and Jinki nods a little.

“Suicide by jumping in front of train.”

Here he clicks his tongue disapprovingly.

“But where am I?” Jinki asks again. He was certain death would be black nothingness but this is certainly not black nothingness and it’s a lot more confusing than he had expected it to be.

“Death,” Minho just says dismissively. “Tell me, Lee Jinki, do you like Christmas?”

Jinki blinks at the unexpected question before he shrugs and nods.

“I guess?”

It sounds like a question because Jinki isn’t really sure what this is all about.

“Good. To become a Christmas Angel, sign here.”

Minho turns the paper towards Jinki, puts a pen on the line where Jinki has to sign and Jinki just stares at him in confusion. Minho seems to get slightly agitated and he taps the paper with the pen.

“What if I don’t want to become a Christmas Angel?” Jinki asks and Minho sighs out loud. He either deals with a lot of dead people or Jinki is just stubborn and problematic.

“Then you go downstairs. The stairs are over there,” he says and points to a door that looks normal. It has a small green exit sign above it; Jinki isn’t entirely sure what the purpose of it is.

“Downstairs?” he asks and Minho nods.

“Yes. Downstairs. What do you people call it?” He stops for a couple of seconds before he lets his fingers through his black hair. “Human terms, Minho, human terms.”

Jinki is about to interrupt him when Minho finally finds the word he’s looking for.

“Hell!” he shouts into the silent room and Jinki takes a step back at the sound. “You’ll go to hell if you don’t become a Christmas Angel.”

Jinki’s eyes widen at the information.

“What? But why?”

“Protocol,” Minho just says. Jinki starts to get annoyed with the dismissive response he’s getting.

“What even are you?”

Minho just rolls his eyes, points at a small sign on the desk that Jinki had missed when he entered the room. Choi Minho, Secretary it says.

“Secretary?” Jinki asks and Minho leans back in his chair.

“Listen, Lee Jinki. I have a line of people waiting outside to be assigned whichever way they need to go, you just cut the line because of your messy death. It’s really not a good thing. Seeing Taemin agitated is always annoying and I’m busy. So if you’ll stop asking questions and make a decision I would be thrilled; do you want to be a Christmas Angel or do you want to go downsta-to hell?”

Jinki thinks death would have been better if it had been black nothingness. At least there would have been fewer annoyed whatever Minho and Taemin are to deal with. He grabs the pen, though, and signs the paper Minho has put in front of him to become a Christmas Angel. It can’t be any worse than hell.

✕✕✕

Jinki stares at what looks like a busy office. There are cubicles filled with people, few walking down the hallways with papers in hand. The smell of coffee spreads throughout the room and Jinki almost closes his eyes to take in the normalcy of it all when he’s interrupted by someone else. The man that stands in front of him is small. He’s thin, his height is small for a man, his features soft yet sharp and his eyes all-knowing. His hair is black, cut short yet not too short and his bangs fall into his eyes softly. It’s actually quite unnerving to stand in front of him. The thing that makes him obviously not human, however, is the large white feathery wings on his back. They’re not spread out, but even when folded, they reach the floor.

“Lee Jinki?” the man asks, his voice soft and melodic. Jinki nods. “Follow me!”

He leads them to an open office, light and soft with white furniture and white walls. If it wasn’t for all the green plants, the room would have looked mostly like a hospital room. The angel sits down in a chair, wings folding behind him in some illogical way Jinki doesn’t have the mental capacity to figure out right now.

“My name is Jonghyun,” the man says enthusiastically. “I’m the head angel of this department and I’m here to tell you about the basics of being a Christmas Angel.”

“Can you tell me where I am?” Jinki asks, not really hoping for an answer but still needing it to make sense of everything.

“The Head Quarter,” Jonghyun answers easily. “So, now that you’re an angel we’ll have to go through basics. We spread joy only, you will spread Christmas joy. We don’t guard people unless we’re guardian angels, which you are not, so you don’t have to worry about humans getting hurt. Just make them happy. You’ll get a new assignment every Christmas and…”

“Jonghyun,” Jinki interrupts, hoping it’s okay to call Jonghyun by his name. “I have no idea what all this means.”

Jonghyun squints at him.

“You are aware that you’re dead, right?”

Jinki nods.

“Yes,” he says.

“Good!” Jonghyun is back to being enthusiastic. “And you signed the contract to become a Christmas Angel?”

Jinki nods again.

“Excellent. Now, listen to me so I can tell you what your job entails. Your job is to make unhappy humans happy during Christmas time. They usually hate Christmas for one reason or another, I don’t know the details of every case but that’s not important. You don’t have to worry about humans getting hurt, it’s not your job to ensure their safety, just their happiness. Are we clear?”

There’s silence between them until Jinki bites his lower lip and nods again.

“Yes.”

“Brilliant! Rules of being an angel include not telling any human you’re an angel; they will most likely deem you insane and lock you up and it’s such a mess and a lot of paperwork, so don’t do that. Promise me?”

“Okay,” Jinki says, not really understanding what Jonghyun is saying.

“Also, falling in love with humans is not recommended. You should not do a job that belongs to someone else, we all have our duties and we don’t want to mess that up. Don’t break the human law because that requires a lot of paperwork as well. Going against your own duties will give you a warning, two warnings and you’re out, going downstairs.”

“Going against … What does that even mean?” Jinki asks, confused.

“Don’t make your case unhappy during Christmas when your job is to make them happy. Simple.”

Jinki soaks all the information up. This is all too much to deal with when you have just died.

“So what am I going to do when it isn’t Christmas?” he asks, when he realizes Jonghyun has been clear about his job being on Christmas only. Jonghyun looks at him with a sigh.

“Paperwork. I’ll help you out when we get to that, you’re going to be busy during December. Do you have any more questions?”

Jonghyun stands from his seat, his wings looking as soft as before with no ruffled feathers after sitting, and he looks towards Jinki with a smile on his face. Jinki blinks a little.

“If … If I’m an angel, shouldn’t I have wings too?”

Jonghyun bursts into laughter at that and opens the door behind him.

“That’s cute, you’re cute. Irene, don’t…!”

Jonghyun whips around and hurries out the door to find whoever Irene is and leaves Jinki alone in the office. This is ridiculous. Jinki should be traumatized from dying but nobody seems to care that he has just died. He has a million questions still but when he has the opportunity to ask them he goes blank. There’s so much new information and his head feels like it’s spinning. He hides his face in his hands as he sighs a little.

Jinki is no longer sure dying is the best decision he has ever made. So far the people he has met has been so unhelpful. He bets there is no religion that describes death as an office run by nut-jobs and angels.

Jinki is slowly getting annoyed with his situation and the contract to become a Christmas Angel and if he’s honest, then maybe downstairs wouldn’t be as bad as humans have made hell out to be. He hears a small giggle from the doorway and when he looks up he gets eye contact with a girl. Her long hair looks like silk and her smile is soft.

“You’re new here?” she asks and Jinki nods again. “I’m Luna.”

“Jinki, Lee Jinki,” he introduces and Luna nods with a smile and steps inside the room.

“Do you want me to show you around? Jonghyun always forgets the most important things, but he’s so busy. He’s a nice guy, though. Everybody here is.”

Jinki stands from his seat and walks towards her as he bites his lower lip. He’s sure they’re all busy but he isn’t entirely sure he believes they’re nice. So far he has only met busy people who didn’t have time to talk to him. His head is still chaotic, but at least Luna doesn’t seem like she’s rushing. She’s showing him around the Head Quarter while she tells him what everything is.

“We manage everything from here, so we’re a lot of people together in the Head Quarter. Down there is Monitoring, only a few select gets to do monitoring because it requires a lot of training. It’s mostly people with medical knowledge as well because they need the knowledge of anatomy.”

Jinki stops in his tracks and blinks confused.

“Why do they need anatomy knowledge?” he asks and Luna stops a few steps in front of him and turns so she can look at him.

“Because all the messy deaths, the mutilated bodies, go to Monitoring as well as they’re the only guys who can assemble the bodies again. Some of the Monitors, like Ravi, likes it while others, like Taemin, thinks it’s a burden.”

Jinki shivers at the mention of Taemin and Luna laughs.

“I assume you’ve met Taemin.”

“But what if the bodies are assembled wrong?” Jinki asks after a minute of silence as they start walking through the hallways again.

“Then the soul leaves their body and that’s it.”

Luna lifts a hand to greet a man that passes them before she turns back to Jinki.

“That’s why we have people like Chanyeol, he’s a Collector. Collectors guide the souls to their last resting spot in our archive.”

“So, no reincarnation?” Jinki asks and Luna shakes her head.

“No, every soul is unique. Reincarnation is something humans created. There are Creators like Irene and Taeyong that create souls to every new human born. There are a lot of Creators, though, it’s one of the most common professions. Then we have all kinds of angels, seasonal angels, holiday angels like you, guardian angels and so on. Everybody does a different job and it’s important that one never does more than their own job, otherwise it’ll create problems.”

Jinki nods a little as they continue through the Head Quarter and stops in front of a large screen.

“This is the case board,” Luna says and presses her finger to the screen so it lights up with documents. She lets her fingers run through multiple of files until she finds something labelled Christmas and zooms in. “This is where we find our cases. Every human has a file and we go through those labelled with our profession. For you, that would be Christmas. Find the ones labelled Christmas and choose one. When you have chosen put your finger in the box on the bottom; it’ll put your digital signature on it and it’ll be filed as your case.”

She reads over the case she has found and then turns to Jinki.

“Maybe you should spend some time looking when I’m done showing you around. This doesn’t seem like an easy case for a newcomer, so choose something a little easier.”

Jinki doesn’t get the chance to read the case before Luna has swiped it away and pulled him away from the screen. Another girl walks up, her wings a dark brown, looks through case files and then chooses one.

For the first time, Jinki realizes that this is a business. This is how everything works. There are so many people working hard, even in death, to assure the happiness of those still living. Luna grabs his shoulder and pulls him with her and it brings him out of his reverie.

“What about downstairs? Is that really like hell?” Jinki asks and Luna lets go of him and frowns a little.

“Hell?” she asks a little confused before she pinches the skin between her eyebrows. “Oh! Yeah, it’s been a while since I was human. No, downstairs is nothing like what humans think Hell is. To pay to go to heaven was such a scam.” She laughs a little. “I can’t believe my parents paid to make sure I went to Heaven and see where I am now.”

She smiles softly and Jinki takes himself in reciprocating the smile. While the Head Quarter is confusing and there are many things he still has to learn, maybe it’s not that bad.

✕✕✕

A group of people laugh when Luna drags Jinki into the room. They’re drinking a clear liquid and a puzzle is spread out in front of them, only half finished.

“Hey guys,” Luna says and sits down in a chair, gesturing towards the one beside her and Jinki sits down. “This is Jinki, he’s a new Christmas Angel.”

The group of people greet him with smiles and waves.

“Hey Jinki, I’m Yunho, I’m also a Christmas Angel,” a man that looks like he’s in his 30’s says and sends him a smile. A woman to Yunho’s left nudges his side with an elbow.

“We’re all Christmas Angels, well except Luna,” she says. “I’m Sooyoung. That is Ryeowook, Kyungsoo, Yuta and Krystal.”

Jinki doesn’t get to say anything before Krystal has leant over the puzzle.

“How did you die?” she asks and Yuta gasps scandalized. Jinki looks from one to another but everybody, maybe with the exception of Yuta, seems genuinely curious.

“Suicide,” he says in a small whisper. Krystal withdraws back to her seat with a small smile on her lips. Yunho clears his throat to relieve the tense atmosphere that has suddenly surrounded them at Jinki’s revelation.

“Ryeowook killed himself as well, it’s okay. I died from an aorta dissection, Sooyoung was a cardiac arrest.”

Sooyoung nods a little to confirm that Yunho is correct. Ryeowook nods with a smile on his lips before he shrugs a little.

“It was an accidental overdose, but I guess it still counts as suicide.”

Jinki sends him a small smile. They don’t have to know he jumped in front of a train, not really. Yuta sighs as he places a piece in the puzzle and looks up.

“I was a traffic accident but it’s been fairly recent.”

Kyungsoo pats his back a little before he looks at Jinki.

“Cholera killed me,” he says and Krystal sighs.

“AIDS took me. Don’t have with men with HIV,” she says and Jinki widens his eyes in surprise.

“How old are you guys?”

Yunho chuckles and shares a look with Ryeowook before he turns back to Jinki.

“I died in 1961 when I was 35,” he says and Ryeowook takes over.

“I was 29 in 1943 when I took an overdose of methadone,” he says and shrugs a little. Yuta sighs again and leans back in his chair.

“I’m 21 and I was killed in 2002.”

Krystal rubs his shoulder comfortingly and looks at Jinki.

“24 years old when I died in 1932 after being infected with HIV,” she says. Kyungsoo sends Jinki a small smile.

“I was 23 when I got infected with cholera in 1834.”

Jinki gapes at him.

“No way.”

His reaction has them all laughing.

“Oh, don’t be so surprised, I was 30 when I had a cardiac arrest in 1895,” Sooyoung says. Jinki has a hard time believing some of the people he sits beside are 100 years old, yet here he is, with people who claim to have died in the 19th century.

They soon let him join their small group and the conversation is steered from death to the puzzle they’re creating. Yunho tells Jinki all about the Head Quarter while Ryeowook and Kyungsoo make it their job to inform Jinki of his duties as a Christmas Angel. Luna has left them alone but Jinki hasn’t even realized she has left, until Krystal leans over and asks if he knows what Luna truly is. Her knowing smirk as she chooses to withhold the information tells Jinki Luna might have been more influential than she introduced herself as.

Sooyoung loves talking about the new world, as she calls it, and she’s thrilled that Jinki can update her on what has happened since Yuta died, because – as she says, she only sees the human world in December and it’s hard to follow all the development that happens in that short span of time. Jinki is still a little confused about death, but with the group of 6 to help him with his questions, he’s sure he can do this right.

✕✕✕

Jinki learns throughout the next couple of days that Jonghyun is way older than he had first thought. He also learns that angels earn their wings based on the years they have served which is why Jonghyun’s are white and so large whereas Taeyeon’s are brown and shorter. He meets Ravi and Kai and learns that Taemin is a genuinely nice guy when he isn’t assembling bodies. He is told that Minho is stressed and that questions really aren’t his specialty but when he’s not on duty in the Office, he’s fun and relaxed. Jinki thinks they should have more than two secretaries to the amount of dead people that passes through the Office and is guided to whichever floor they need to be.

He learns that the Head Quarter is located on the second floor but that the elevators don’t have a button to second floor. He learns that downstairs is paperwork and bad working conditions with little communication to others, but not fiery pits of hell with demons poking your body with tri-forks. Chanyeol takes him to the Archive where thousands upon thousands of used souls rest.

Jinki learns that most deceased children become imaginary friends with the exception of newborns and stillbirths that automatically are split from their bodies and put to rest in the Archive. He also learns that one can, any time, be put to rest for all eternity and give up work, but that most of those working in HQ actually enjoys it.

When he on November 30 chooses his case, a man at the age of 25 that has lost his father the year prior and therefore doesn’t look forward to Christmas, Jinki is certain that he can prove his worth as a Christmas Angel. How hard can it be to spread a little happiness on an already happy holiday?

-----

A/N: I'm really excited about this au. Seriously. So welcome to HQ. ^-^

I don't know how long this story will actually get, but I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow or in the weekend. It won't have a lot of chapters, this is just introduction because I'm excited to share this with you all. 

Pls let me know if the text is hard to read.