Jungkook remembers all the bedtime stories his mother would read to him on nights sleep evaded him. Each one about heroes and princesses finding their one true love, their soulmate. All those stories lead Jungkook to believe that one day he would find his own soulmate however to his disappointment, his soulmate has yet to appear. Jungkook was always shy when it came to meeting new people but he always tried to introduce himself to anyone who caught his eye. He read somewhere on the internet that finding one’s soulmate was hard, on the other hand knowing if they were soulmates was easy. All it took was one conversation and both halves knew they were meant for each other. Jungkook also knew about the red string of fate and envied the tales of people being able to see their own sting, things would be so much easier if he could simply follow his own red sting to his soulmate, yet here he was laying in bed, alone. Jungkook groaned loudly as he finally sat up to start his day, he was already late to his morning class so what was the point in rushing. One of his friends would cover for him anyways, all they had to do was write his name on the sign in sheet and he could easily find the notes online. Jungkook slowly ate breakfast while surfing his social media accounts, rolling his eyes when he reads another happy tweet about someone finding their soulmate. Sure, he was only 22 and there were plenty of people who found their soulmates at a much later age but that didn’t comfort the young man at all. Jungkook wanted to find his soulmate now so he could be all gross and coupley like his other friends, life could just be so unfair sometimes.

Jungkook’s first class was about to end when he finally left his house, he had 20 mintues before his next class started and it was a 15 minute walk to the college campus. Jungkook remembered he had to hand in some paperwork to the college counselor so he decided to cut through some sketchy alleyways to shorten his arrival time. In one of the alleyways sat a cloaked figure, sitting behind a makeshift box desk with the word “Fortune” written on the front. Jungkook thought about finding another path but all the other paths lead to dead ends so he pulled his hood up and tried to walk past the “fortune teller” as quick as possible.

“Hello, young man. May I interest you in a fortune?” The voice wasn’t an old gravelly woman’s voice like Jungkook expected, it sounded like a young man’s voice. “I can tell you all sorts of things but I can sense you want to know about your soulmate.” The voice continued.

“Uhhh, sure?” Jungkook answered, it couldn’t hurt to get some reassurance, even if it was probably fake. The fortune teller pulled down their hood and gesture at Jungkook to come closer. Jungkook’s eyes widened when he saw the beautiful man, his cheeks were so fluffy like mochi that he wanted to squish them. The fortune teller grabbed Jungkook’s hand and examined his palm before letting out a soft sigh.

“What is it?” Jungkook asked.

“It seems your soulmate is in a place you can never reach.” The fortune teller said with a sorrowful smile.

“What do you mean?” Jungkook didn’t like were this was going, not one bit.

“The two of you are never going to meet. Your soulmate is in a place the living can’t touch.” The fortune teller said bitterly, Jungkook was confused by this revelation and by how the fortune teller seemed so upset for him.

“You’re joking right?” Jungkook whimpered out. “This isn’t a nice thing to joke about… I know my soulmate is out there somewhere.” Jungkook argued, the fortune teller took a shaky breath.

“Believe it or not ,but I don’t want-” The fortune teller quickly stops himself before continuing. “I know that your soulmate wouldn’t want you to wait around for him, only to die alone waiting for him. There are plenty of other soulmateless people out there that could give you the love you deserve and you’ll be just as happy with them as you would with your soulmate. So please move on.” The fortune teller begged but Jungkook was having none of it, he refused to believe that his soulmate was... gone. The young man ran out of the alleyway, ignoring the fortune teller calling out to him. Jungkook continued to run until he tripped over a tree root and was sent falling onto his face, slowly sat on his knees hunched over as tears fell down his cheeks. That was when he noticed a shimmering red thread tied around his pinky.  Jungkook eyes followed the red thread, noticing that it went deeper into the park. Hope ignited his body as he stood up to follow his fate. Jungkook walked into a clearing and all the hope died, the other end of the red string appeared to be somewhere in the sky. The young man screamed and harshly pulled on the string, all his dreams about love and soulmates were crushed. It felt like hours before Jungkook finally calmed down enough to have a coherent thought, he pulled on the thread as hard as he could and when the thread didn’t move or snap, an idea formed in his head.

“Maybe I could join him.” Jungkook muttered to himself, he looked around to make sure the coast was clear before climbing up a tree. He was disappointed when the thread didn’t untie from his pinky but that didn’t stop him from tying a loop into the string. With a deep breath Jungkook placed his foot into the loop and started climbing up the string like it was gym class.

“Okay, Jungkook all you have to do is not look down and pray an airplane doesn’t hit you.” Jungkook noted as he climbed higher and higher, he was still below the clouds when he took his first break. The view was beautiful from up there but Jungkook couldn’t enjoy it for too long, he still had a long ways to go… Well, he assumed he had a long ways to go. The determined bunny was finally past the clouds but the red sting appeared to go up for forever.

“Maybe I should give up…” Jungkook looked down but only saw an ocean of soft white clouds. “I’ll keep going, worst case scenario I get to space and probably die but at least I get to see space!” He thought positively, nothing was going to stop him except death because let’s be honest, he was thousands of feet up in the air, banking on the idea that climbing this red thread will take him to his soulmate and honestly there are a million ways he could die. Jungkook flinched when a bird landed on his shoulder, it was a crow.

“Hey there buddy, whatcha doing?” Jungkook laughed nervously.

“I could be asking you the same thing.” The crow said, almost causing the human to fall down.

“Y-you can talk!” Jungkook yelled tightening his hold on the thread.

“Yeah and you’re climbing your red thread so you wanna tell me why?” The crow asked, obviously grumpy.

“Well Mr.Crow, my dream was to live happily ever after with my soulmate, like those stories my mother used to tell me but apparently he’s dead so here I am climbing up my red string of fate to hopefully see him at least once.” Jungkook explained as he continued to climb.

“I can’t tell if you’re crazy or determined but I like ya kid, so why don’t I help you out?” The crow cawed.

“Ummm what exactly do you mean by help?” Jungkook asked, slightly skeptical that this was even real life, for all he knew this could all be a really weird dream.

“I got connections.” The crow sighed when he saw that Jungkook was still on the fence about accepting his offer. “Look here kiddo, your ‘soulmate’ works for my friend and I’ve grown to like the newbie over the years. When I heard he was upset over the fact that you were going to die alone because you were waiting for him, I decided to break some rules and help him out. I allowed him to pass on whatever message he wanted to you. The told you that you guys were never going to meet and to move on but instead of listening  you ran away and here we are, climbing up your thread.” The crow gestured to the red thread and then to Jungkook. “So what I’m offering is a deal to be with your soulmate before you run out of oxygen and die. Because I’m telling you this now, it’s impossible for any mortal to enter where the dead go, this isn’t some fairytale where love fixes everything.” The crow huffed.

“...What’s the deal and how is it any better than just dying?” Jungkook didn’t completely trust the crow. For all he knew the bird could be a demon or something, trying to steal his soul. He would rather give up and wait 80 some years to be with his soulmate then sell his soul to a demon and possibly never see him.

“Well, seeing as your ‘soulmate’ isn’t supposed to have a soulmate since he was never human, if you die your spirit would be taken to where all the other human spirits go when they die and you would never see him but if you take my deal, then I can make you one of us and you get to see him whenever you want.” The crow shrugged nonchalantly.

“Okay… but where’s the asterisk?” Jungkook pouted.

“You’re a bright kid, so the ‘whenever you want’ part might be an exaggeration. You would work for me as a helper or something but you can spend your free time however you want.” The crow explained.

“Alright, I’ll do it.” Jungkook declared as he held his hand out for the crow to shake but before he could retract his hand (because shaking a crow’s wing to make a deal is weird) the crow suddenly transformed into a pale man wearing a black cloak and shook Jungkook’s hand. Instantly the two were teleported to a messy office room, Jungkook looked around completely disoriented while the crow, now man, shuffled around the room, knocking even more papers over and digging threw different cabinets.

“Okay, your first task as my helper is to help me clean this place up because I can’t find .” The man grumbled when more paper flew onto the ground.

“I’m pretty good at organizing stuff, just give me the order and categories then we can work from there, Mr… ummm you never told me your name.” Jungkook said innocently as he started picking up all the scattered papers on the ground.

“It’s Yoongi.” Yoongi answered, reading over a few different papers and putting them into piles.

“Mr.-”

“Just Yoongi is fine.” Yoongi interrupted. Being called Mr made Yoongi feel older than he already was.

“Okay, Just Yoongi.” Jungkook snickered at his own joke, he was surprised when the other laughed quietly as well. Once they stopped giggling like a bunch of school girls, Yoongi explained the whole organization process and walked Jungkook through the filing process.

“Do you do all of this on your own?” Jungkook wasn’t only talking about the filing but also everything they were filing, like collecting lost souls and ferrying all the spirits to the afterlife. There were so many different tasks they had to organize and file that Jungkook honestly wanted to quit.

“Nah, I have a bunch of workers who do all the simple tasks but they aren’t smart enough to organize, file and do the more advanced tasks… That’s sort of why I hired you.” Yoongi chuckled nervously, like he was just caught red handed.

“Oh…Is there not anyone else who could help you? You know like other… Uhhh, what exactly are you?” Jungkook was slowly realizing that he knew nothing about what he got himself into.

“Hmmm. We go by a lot of different names, it depends on your religion I guess. We don’t call ourselves anything because it doesn’t really matter, we’re simply beings that take care of all aspects of life on earth.” Yoongi shrugged. “And to answer your other question; no one likes to work with the afterlife stuff, that’s why there were creatures specifically made for it and they’re not the brights of pets.” Yoongi snorted.

“But you’re here and I’m assuming you’re not one of the ‘creatures specifically made for it’” Jungkook stated, he just wanted to get a better understanding of his new life and he wasn’t afraid to ask a bunch questions because he needed answers, damnit.

“I’m the exception. I don’t love my job but it’s better than all the other jobs. Sure, this one has more work but most of it is simple, unlike taking care of the living.” Yoongi complained. “I honestly don’t know how Hobi can deal with everyone’s bull all the time.” He mumbled under his breath.

“Whose Hobi?” Jungkook asked.

“Hoseok, you’ll meet him soon since he’s J- I mean your soulmate’s boss. Their department handles actual living, like growing up and stuff.” Yoongi took a step back and looked around the room. “Looks like we’re finished.” The two sat down at the desk and Yoongi pulled out a few papers, it was a contract.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Yoongi asked calmly.

“Heh, are you really going to let me go?” Jungkook joked but Yoongi’s face stayed serious. “Of course I want to do this, not only for my soulmate but also for you.” Jungkook mumbled. “You’re pretty cool.” Both men blushed, embarrassed by the words just spoken. Yoongi cleared his throat before handing Jungkook a pen.

“Sign here.” The older pointed at the dotted line and Jungkook wrote his name in his most fancy cursive.

“It looks like you’re stuck with me now.” Jungkook teased.

“Ehhh, I doubt it most people leave after a few years.” Yoongi replied as he filed away Jungkook’s contract.

“Wait, so I don’t have to work with the afterlife? I thought I was your helper?” Jungkook was once again confused.

“You have all the rights and choices as everyone else here.” Yoongi paused and Jungkook could feel another explanation coming. “I would recommend you not telling anyone that you were human before, nothing would happen to you but I would be in huge trouble since humans aren’t supposed to be able to work with us. It’s a complicated rule that no one even knows exists, let alone been broken before.” Yoongi stated.

“How do you know no one has ever broken it?” Jungkook asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Because the only people who know about it are the ones who stuck around the afterline long enough to earn the title ‘master of the afterlife’. There are ‘forbidden’ tasks that only masters know and can do for their respected occupation. I know that the afterlife has a few but I don’t know how many the other occupations have.” Yoongi explained.

“What are the other occupations?” Jungkook asked, because he’s just full of questions.

“Are you already tired of this place?” Yoongi teased, ruffling the younger’s hair. “There are 4 major categories: Creation, Animals, Humans and Afterlife. Each category has subcategories, except for afterlife. The subcategories are basically the occupations you can pick.

Creation is basic, you can choose to make animals or humans.

Animals is also basic but it can be sad at times, it’s divided by Water/Land/Sky what you pick is what you care for.

Humans look simple but it can be a lot of work, it’s divided by Growth/Love/Karma/Personality.

I can already tell you have questions so shoot.” Yoongi thought he was going to get annoyed by all the questions but so far he has really enjoyed explaining things to Jungkook.

“How is animals sad, can you explain the human subcategories, why doesn’t afterlife have any subcategories and why did you pick afterlife?” Jungkook felt like a sponge absorbing all of this information but it was necessary if he was going to make it in his new life.

“I can answer the first and last one together. Animals was where I was working before I transferred here. It was fun watching all the cute puppys live happy lives but watching the abuse really got to me so I transferred here after trying all the other places and decided that I would make sure those abused animals had a nice life in the afterlife.

Growth is basically human biology and health, Love handles soulmates, Karma watches over people and judges humans based on their actions, Personality is where they mold a human’s personality based on their interests, it’s also where they handle things like jobs and friends.

Lastly, the afterlife doesn't have any subcategories because there are not enough workers here to warrant any. There’s me the master and the creatures who work here, occasionally I have workers who want to try everything before choosing and sometimes workers are sent here as a punishment but other than that I’m the only worker here.” Yoongi answered all of Jungkook’s questions the best he could, the younger nodded and processed all the information.

“Okay, last question for now. What’s the difference between the creatures who work here and a worker like you and everyone else?”

“The difference is in intelligence and free will I guess? It’s hard to explain… Basically Workers have their own thoughts and can pretty much do whatever they want because they have a higher thought process. The creature however are more like pets in a way, they can do simple tasks but you don’t see any of them contemplating life’s greatest questions. It would be easier to show you instead of explain.” Yoongi crossed his arms as he tried to come up with a better explanation.

“They won’t attack me right?” Jungkook asked nervously.

“Nope, they are the most passive creatures ever made. They only attack when a corrupted soul or spirit attacks.” Yoongi reassured the younger with a pat on the shoulder. “We can go see them now if you want.” Jungkook nodded his head and Yoongi didn’t waste any time whisking them away to the central hub of the afterlife. Jungkook watched as many different brightly colored animals wondered about the large room.

“It’s beautiful.” Jungkook mumbled out, eyes filled with awestruck stars.

“I have yet to meet a single human who would refused to follow one of these guys to the afterlife. Well, except for…” Yoongi trailed off before starting again. “We can talk about that later, I should probably take you to your soulmate before he has a giant meltdown when he notices you’re not ‘alive’ anymore.” Jungkook perked up when he heard soulmate and quickly grabbed Yoongi’s hand. The younger found himself in another office but this one was much neater than Yoongi’s, he was about to ask the older where they were but the door slamming cut him off.

“What the hell is going on!” A man yelled, Jungkook shyly tried to hide behind Yoongi. “Wait, is that Jungkook!?”

“Yeah babe it is, where’s Ji- I mean his… you know.” Yoongi did a weird eye movement coupled with some strange hand gestures.

“Okay, wait, slow down… Do you want to explain what’s going on first? I just sent Ji- you know who home because he was distraught about Jungkook’s disappearance and how he couldn’t find him in the navi but now Jungkook is here in my office with you. How is this even possible? Humans and Workers can’t cross the boundaries but somehow he’s here.” The man looked like he was about to pull out all his hair if he didn’t get any answers soon.

“I can’t explain in detail how he’s here but just know he’s a worker now.” Yoongi quickly shushed the other man before continuing. “I know what you’re going to say but Jungkook agreed to this himself and we can easily pass him off as a new worker since only you, his soulmate, Taehyung, Namjoon, Seokjin and me know about him. He’ll be working in the afterlife so we have time to teach him everything he has to know before exploring the other occupations, if he wants to. It’s all going to work out and Ji-hmmm will be happy to have his soulmate! Trust me Hoseok.” Yoongi pleaded softly, giving Hoseok his best puppy eyes. It was so out of character that Hoseok couldn’t process what he was seeing then suddenly his heart turned into goo.

“I trust you.” Hoseok his lips nervously. “I just needed an explanation to everything, you know it’s not every day a worker gets a human soulmate and said human become a worker. This has never happen before, we have to tell everyone!” Both Yoongi’s and Jungkook’s eyes widen with fear. “Not everyone, everyone, just the people who deal with Jungkook’s life, our friends.” Hoseok quickly added.

“Do you think you can call them all here, I don’t want to explain this more than twice.” Yoongi said plopping down on the couch that was up against the wall.

“Sure, I’ll even make it a surprise!” Hoseok giggled while Jungkook took a seat next to Yoongi. The confused newly made worker was going to ask Yoongi what the other man was doing but suddenly four other men appeared in the room, all facing the excited man.

“This better be important, Hoseok.” One of the men grumbled, he was obviously comforting the man to his right.

“It is! Yoongi got a worker!” Hoseok clapped happily.

“Really? I know you two are a thing but this isn’t really important news. Workers come and go from afterlife all the time what makes this time so different?” Another man asked, genuinely curious about the sudden excitement.

“Well turn around and find out!” Hoseok made a huge arm gesture, causing the four men to quickly turn around.

“Hello, I’m Jungkook it’s nice to meet all of you.” Jungkook awkwardly waved at them. It was completely silent before pandora’s box was unleashed. Everyone was yelling and demanding for answers, it honestly spooked Jungkook until one of the men walked up to him and pulled him into a tight hug. It was the fortune teller, it was his soulmate. He didn’t hesitate from hugging the worker just as tight.

“I get that this is a touching and wonderful moment but can we get some answers?” One of the men demanded.

“How about introductions first?” Yoongi suggested. “The one who was comforting him is Taehyung, the one in the middle is Namjoon and the one on the left is Seokjin, the one you’re holding is-”

“I’m Jimin, It’s… Uh, it’s nice to meet you, officially that is.” Jimin gave the younger a bright smile, which Jungkook returned.

“I’m glad we get to be together, Jimin.” Jungkook chriped. “I can’t wait to spend more time with you.” Both workers blushed at Jungkook’s confession.

“I-I can’t wa-” Jimin was quickly interrupted by loud coughing.

“Please save the smooshy stuff for private time, what we need to know is how Jungkook got here and how he’s a worker.” Seokjin said, bringing the focus back on Jungkook’s mysterious appearance.

“I dunno, he just showed up in the afterlife…” Yoongi mumbled, he wanted to tell everyone the truth but it was against the rules to share anything related to the forbidden tasks to anyone who wasn’t a master of that occupation.

“I was climbing our red string of fate, I got past the clouds and everything went black. Umm Yoongi took me in.” Jungkook quickly added, trying to save Yoongi from the situation.

“How strange.” Namjoon rubbed his chin in thought. “Well there’s no helping it if that’s what happened. We just have to play with the cards given to us.” Namjoon grinned, causing Jungkook and Yoongi to relax.

“Welcome to the team, Jungkook!” Taehyung gave him a thumbs up.

“I suppose we should give you a tour around the realms.” Seokjin commented.

“I’ll do it!” Jimin offered excitedly, before anyone could intervene Jimin took Jungkook’s hand and warped away.

“Well, my job here is done. I’m going to take a nap, see ya.” Yoongi waved half heartedly, ignoring the protests and went back to the afterlife realm. He jumped when Hoseok suddenly appeared but didn’t say anything when the younger followed him to bed. Naps were the best form of bonding.

“And lastly this is where I work!” Jimin made a grand gesture towards the large building he worked in. “I would show you my office but we would probably be swarmed but a bunch of workers. They get so excited when new blood comes in.” Jimin laughed, it was the most beautiful sound Jungkook has ever heard. “So this concludes our tour for the evening, do you have any questions?” Jimin asked in his most docent esque voice.

“Nope, you did really well with explaining each realm and Yoongi already gave me the rundown for each occupation so I guess we’re done for now...” Jungkook trailed off.

“What’s wrong?” Jimin asked, watching quietly as Jungkook shifted around.

“Well, it was nice seeing everything but I was sort of hoping we could spend more quality time together. I mean it seems like everyone knows everything about me but I don’t know anything about you guys, about you.” Jungkook took Jimin’s hand into his own, it was comforting but at the same time it was still foreign to him.

“Then it’s a good thing we have all the time in the world to be together.” Jimin whispered as he leaned his forehead against Jungkook’s. The younger couldn’t help but snort.

“I can’t believe you have to stand on a rock just to do this.” Jimin tried to grab the younger but Jungkook was too fast and started running down the pathway with Jimin close on his heels.

The End because I’m bad at ending thing. Thanks for reading.