“Hyung, I really don’t feel good about this…”

“Come on Jungkook, hyung believes in you.”

“But hyung, really…I don’t think my tummy feels so good, and I feel like I might hurl at any moment…”

Taehyung finally lost his patience and threw down his latest Gucci catalogue. “Come on Gukkie, it’s just a freaking hamster, it’s not like we’re asking you to reap a human or an elephant or anything like that!”

“Tae, what have we talked about here?” Jin looked up disappointedly at Taehyung.

Taehyung sighed “A life’s a life’s a life. All life is created equal and will be treated equally in the eyes of death.”

“Exactly,” Jin nodded curtly. “Now Kookie, just take deep breaths and everything will be fine.”

* * *

“Come on Park Jimin,” Jungkook called, frustrated at his current situation.

His mission was running smoothly until he met the hamster in question, a sharp toothed and clawed hamster with the speed of lightning that bit and clawed at his hand when he tried to reach in to extract the hamster for the reaping.

“No way in h*ll you overgrown emo kid!” The hamster screamed as he ran and hid in the deepest corner of his extremely well furnished hamster home.

You’ll be going to hell if you keep biting at me, thought Jungkook as he tried to remove some of the furniture to get at the stubborn rodent. “We don’t have all day Park Jimin! Come here you little twerp!”

“Who you calling little? You muscle pig!” Jimin screamed as he scurried across the cage, claws flailing, “You’ll never take me away from my master! He needs me to run at the wheel to give him energy!”

“What are you blabbering about? You’re just a rodent!” Jungook sighed, exasperated, but kept trying to reach further into the cage through the tiny hamster door. Just a little bit more…..gotcha!

“Let me go you overgrown piece of reaper!” the little rodent struggled in his grasps, eyes darting left and right as it looked for a route of escape, its fuzzy little body twisting and turning. “At least let me see my master again before I die!”

As if the universe decided to honor the little crackhead’s dying wish, keys jingled and the front door opened, revealing what look to be a college student that stayed up a week in a row, holding 5 bags of what seemed like extremely heavy grocery.

It was only when he realized that the college kid was staring directly at him that he realized he didn’t follow invisibility protocols since he didn’t think there would be humans involved.

And in his panic, he accidentally reaped the hamster in front of the human.

“…oh…are you one of Namjoon or Hoseok’s friends?”

Jungkook knew something was going to go wrong during this hamster reaping…

* * *

Jungkook had heard plenty of stories about reapings gone wrong throughout his training years.

For example, Taehyung was once on a reaping assignment when he got distracted by what he claimed to be aliens searching for the lost treasure of Teka’muk. The reaping subject, a dog named Jackson, who was supposed to die from a rare form of brain altering infection, instead infected an entire forest of squirrels in Wyoming, where Taehyung accidentally took him when he got distracted by following the supposed aliens.

It was a mess for the reaping squad to clean up, and “zombie squirrels” was the headline on the local paper for over a week. Good thing no one believed a thing that came out of that part of Wyoming, or there would have been a crisis on the statute of secrecy.

Even Jin, who seemed to be a perfect reaper in every sense of the word, messed up his first reaping when he was scared half to death by a cat running across the window of the hospital and accidently switched the souls of his reaping subject and the poor creature.

“I ended up reaping the cat out of the grandma and letting the grandma live on in the cat,” Jin admitted to them later, a look of shame and guilt plastered all over his face as he recalled that time. “I was so ashamed that I didn’t have the guts to call the council, and Jaebum was really cool and said it didn’t matter if he ended up going a little early since he’s sick of being an ally cat and was ready to move on to being human.”

“Wait, Jaebum was the cat?” Taehyung cooed.

“What do you know him?” Jungkook raised an eyebrow.

Taehyung burst out into laughter “No, but you realize you have your human grandma running around in a male cat’s body, right?”

Jin sighed. Jungkook felt bad for Jin. “It shouldn’t matter,” Jungkook patted Jin’s overly broad shoulders, “The cat was getting old anyway, and the grandma had dementia, so she probably thought she was always a male cat and dreamt the rest or something.”

They later heard through the grapevine that when Jinyong went to reap an ancient ally cat, he was surprised to see that what he expected to be a male ally cat actually had the soul of an old lady. It was a great reaping as JInyong and “Im Jaebum” instantly between friends, as they were able to talk on the same wavelength on knitting patterns, tea, and philosophy.

Taehyung laughed for days when he heard, and kept repeating the story much to Jin’s misery.

* * *

Min Yoongi, Jungkook later learned, was Jimin’s owner. When Yoongi saw Jungkook “playing” with Jiminnie in the living room, he thought Jungkook was one of his roommate’s friends.

“I’m Namjoon’s friend!” Jungkook bursted out, panic leading him to accept the first thing Yoongi suggested and decided playing along is better than revealing who he is. He just prayed to the heavens above that this Namjoon didn’t decide to come back home anytime soon.

“I’m sorry hyung!” Jungkook screamed, almost out of habit…could this Yoongi count as his hyung? “I was just playing around with him and he….he”

Yoongi took a look at the limp hamster in Jungkook’s hand, walked towards him, gathered the little hamster in his hands, and a single tear streaked down his face before full on crying.

For the next 15 minutes, Jungkook awkwardly patted Yoongi’s shoulder as Yoongi cried and told Jungkook more than he ever wanted to know about Jimin the hamster.

“You know…” Yoongi hiccupped, “He *hic* was a present from *hic* my ex…the beginning of sophomore year *hic* …..we…broke up *hic* shortly after, but *hic* Jiminnie was so cute and I *hic*”

“Shuuuuuuush” Jungkook cooed “How about I make you some honey citron tea, hyung.”

“That *hic* would be nice” Yoongi sniffled.

Jimin’s spirit, now taking a human form, was sitting crosslegged infront of Yoongi like some sort of guard dog, staring daggers at Jungkook.

That’s what led them to where they are now, Yoongi sitting with his tiny sweaterpaws nursing a steaming cup of honey citron tea,

Jungkook glanced over once again at the small college student, still looking extremely depressed and adorable…

Wait, did he think adorable? He shook his head violently.

“You stay away from my master you evil gorilla you!”

Jimin’s spirit, now taking a human form, was sitting next to the college student, glaring back at him with a look that screamed “I’ll murder you, try me.”

“I’m not trying to reap your master, Jimin, calm the down!” Jungkook whispered as he washed the kettle.

“Did you say something?” Yoongi looked up slowly, eyebrows slightly furrowed from confusion, but still looking as depressed – still with a few tear streaks on his cheeks. Jungkook felt like he might squeal.

“No,” Jungkook quickly replied, trying to think fast, “but I was wondering if you needed help putting your groceries away.”

* * *

“Hyung,” Jungkook mused, as he helped Jin with peeling the potato for their weekly curry night “I think I’m in love with Yoongi hyung.”

Jin stopped mid chop, before holding up the remaining stub of the carrot, about to reprimand him, when a fury of silver and gold flew in front of Jungkook’s face.

“You stay away from my master or so help me god I’ll possess Jin to chop off your !”

“Now, now, Jiminnie, just because I invited you to my home does not mean you can climb onto my kitchen counter whenever you please even if you’re still a spirit.” Jin sighed once again, and slowly pushed the spirit off the counter. “And as for you, Kookie, it’s probably an infatuation. You barely know the guy and I doubt you could have been shot by cupid in the short timespan that you were in that house.”

Jin eventually figured out that Jungkook was taking too long for reaping a hamster and decided to go check on his adoptive son to make sure the kid didn’t do anything too disastrous. When he knocked on the apartment door, he was surprised to be greeted by a shorter college student with red puffy eyes and a spirit hanging by his shoulder, and Jungkook looking guiltily at him a few steps behind.

“Uhhhh….” Jin began, not knowing how to handle the situation but decided to improvise, “I’m here to pick up my kid brother?”

“You’re here for Jungkookie?” The adorable sweater clad boy asked, tilting his head slightly. Jungkook visibly flinched, and Jin almost face palmed himself. Trust the kid to tell the human his real name.

“Yeah,” Jin nodded stiffly, trying to signal to Jungkook to grab the soul and prepare for departure.

“But Namjoon’s not home yet, shouldn’t you guys wait till Namjoon gets back?”

Jin for once, was glad that Jungkook was occasionally one of the sharper knives on the block, and saved him from even more confusion.

“It’s ok! I’ll just text him when I get back home, and I’m sure I’ll see him again tomorrow or something.” Jungkook added when he saw Jin’s expression. “Thank you for having me Yoongi hyung, and I’m really sorry about Jimin!”

“No you’re not you lying bastard!” The spirit spat in Jungkook’s face as Jin released a spirit chain to tie down Jimin while Yoongi was distracted.

Two things worked in their favour shortly after that:

1. While Jimin still hated Jungkook’s guts and was not ready to move the on, he did take a liking to Jin and Taehyung and agreed that he’ll stop seeking his master and will stay with them.
   • That’s one less human building being haunted by a wayward y-attitude spirit.
2. Turns out that Taehyung was somehow friends with this Kim Namjoon
   • “Oh yeah! We were in the same philosophy class my freshman year! I took the class for an easy A, but he was really into it and I thought it was hilarious!” Taehyung had explained to them. “I’ll just let him know that I sent my baby brother over because he needed help with his comp sci homework, or something. Here, text Namjoon so it makes your story look more real.”