One thing Seokjin can never complain about is unemployment. In his line of work, there is really great job security.

He’s a reaper. Less grim, more giggly, but a reaper of souls all the same.

It’s slow going; there’s a long wait time for souls to move on. They need to be assessed and sorted and ranked; some go to reincarnation, samsara or sleep until resurrection, others damnation or purgatory. There’s Valhalla, Heaven, other paradises. Depends on denomination and faith, and it can get very involved, so Seokjin is glad his role is collecting the souls.

Although even that can be a chore. Many souls don’t want to go. Some escape and wander their realm restlessly or malevolently—Seokjin has to assign special operations reapers to retrieve them. Very seldomly search and destroy, but there have been some very Bad People that no afterlife wanted to take in.

So while many consider him a god of death, he’s more accurately a shepherd of souls. He does not control the die. He merely collects the souls once they’re severed from their physical form.

It’s not that difficult to understand, yet there are still people who beg for Seokjin to not kill them, as if the 35,000 pounds of metal and rubber T-boning their car on the highway didn’t do a thorough enough job.

While business is always booming, therein lies a boarding problem. The souls need to go somewhere as they wait their turn in front of their chosen judge or jury. Some thousands of years ago, Seokjin opened the doors to his home.

That’s not to say he was lonely, but it is nice having company, and they’re an interesting variety.

There isn’t a high turnover rate, and Seokjin can create more unliving space from the dark matter he dwells in off the clock. He does form a bond with each soul under his roof, however, and goodbyes are never easy. A lot of the time, he’s the only one left with memories.

Currently, his menagerie of tenants includes a reverse centaur, a cow with a human face and very rigid opinions about the quality of cheese, a reverse mermaid, a fairy/mermaid hybrid—or fairmaid, which the poor thing hates being called, because he’s a boy and keeps getting hit on by a burly knight with an affinity for round things.

Seokjin hangs his scythes in the closet and kicks his shoes inside, spreading his toes in the once-fluffy rug that he should probably throw in the wash sometime soon. It doesn’t look as spring green as it used to. A few million souls rubbing their grubby feet across it can really wear out floor coverings.

He manages to be within his realm for a full three minutes and seventeen seconds before he hears a high-pitched scream.

“Taehyung, drop him.” The were-dog—or werewolf; whatever he is, he looks more like a Husky than a wild wolf—lowers his head and opens his jaws, allowing a bedraggled black-and-white rabbit roll out of his mouth. Wet and stinking of saliva, Jungkook the rabbit hisses and shakes his fur, hunkering down over his paws when Taehyung begins to his fur.

“Hoseok, I thought I asked you to look after them.” Seokjin rolls Jungkook into a towel, avoiding the pointed front teeth. He carries the rabbit in an arm and shakes a watering can.

Empty. He knows he filled it before leaving.

“Taehyung, did you drink Hoseok’s water?”

The were-Husky’s ears fall back, and he lowers his head.

He’s new, Seokjin tells himself. He’s young. Things are confusing at his age. He just wants to be friends with everyone and play… Of all the were-creatures Seokjin has known, Taehyung is the most fun but also confusing. He’ll be on his back for all to rub his belly one minute and brooding on the sofa the next, eyes glossy as he stares into nothing.

Seokjin prefers the playful naughtiness personality-wise, but the brooding silence saves his home from unnecessary disaster.

“I give you all your own water, why you insist on drinking others’...” Seokjin mumbles to himself as he refills the watering can. He keeps Hoseok’s large pot in a corner of the room, beneath a contraption humans call a “sun lamp,” which a bald, three-legged crow has claimed as its perch.

There is no natural light in his realm, and it has made hosting creatures like Hoseok a little difficult. He thrives with the sun; it’s how he eats and lives.

Exists, rather. Everyone is dead. All they do afterwards is ingrained habit.

The sun lamp offers some sense of normalcy for those born in worlds with planets and stars.

Taehyung is enjoying his afterlife, at least. Without a moon, he doesn’t shift uncontrollably and seems to prefer being four-legged and furry. Seokjin’s pretty sure he’s aware of just how cute he is, and that’s the real reason he doesn’t shift—he knows Seokjin’s weakness for cute things.

Settling the swaddled rabbit on the counter, Seokjin opens a new can of coconut water for him and swats Taehyung’s snoot before he can try to take the bowl away. Jungkook’s diet is special; he’s a blood drinker. Since fresh blood is difficult to get from nonliving bodies, he accepts the next best thing without too much complaint. It doesn’t stain his fur, anyway.

Hoseok finally wakes up and unfurls his leaves, petals stretching as he yawns. He faces the sun lamp with a bright smile and wiggles his stem in a happy dance.

His shifting upsets the soil, and a grumpy rock works his way to the surface and flips over the side to hit the floor with a clack. “Hello, Yoongi. I’ve been wondering where you’ve been.” Yoongi the rock lies still for a moment, then begins to roll himself end over end into a darkened area where a fish-girl sleeps in a pool. He rolls into the water and sinks with a grateful sigh even as he’s wrapped in the tentacles of a very old and very tired eldritch sea monster.

“How was your day?” the centaur whinnies. He rubs his velvety nose and swats at the fairy buzzing around his ears.

“Eventful, actually.” Seokjin sits and groans as his lap is immediately claimed by the affectionate werewolf-dog. “We’ve got someone new, and I want you all to be nice to him…” They all look around but see only familiar faces and features. Seokjin could've sworn the boy was right behind him, eyeing his neck. “Well, where is he?” Taehyung sniffs his clothes and snorts. He doesn’t like being pushed to the floor but follows the reaper to the front door, where his fur rises along his back.

“I’m sorry, Jimin— I forgot. Please, come in.”

“It’s alright.” After flashing his tongue at the haughty haetae guarding the door, a boy floats inside but stills when faced with a growling were-dog. His face contorts into something unbelievably ugly, and he hisses.

Taehyung’s tail tucks between his legs.

“Oh, knock it off, you two!” Groaning, Seokjin rubs his face. “Is that stupid feud still going on?” Vampires and werewolves have rarely gotten along. Apart, they can accept one another's existence, live and let live, but together… It’s an ongoing dislike that’s been around for longer than Seokjin’s been a reaper—so a long time—and he’s never understood it.

Jimin alights on the carpeted floor and stretches to all fours, hair growing long and shaggy and face elongating into a muzzle of long, sharp teeth. He’s smaller than Taehyung but more impressively fearsome.

They face off with ears flat and fur up, and Seokjin is readying to dive for his scythe to break up a dog fight—

—when Taehyung throws his upper body to the floor, forelegs spread and tail wagging. A muscle in Jimin’s shoulder twitches, and Taehyung spins around to dash out of the hall with Jimin hot on his tail.

Namjoon the philosophical pigeon squawks as he’s nearly trampled. ”It is a mistake to think that moving fast is the same as actually going somewhere!” Settling his ruffled feathers, be walks out of the way. While completely capable of flying, he always walks, and not very fast. His perch is knocked over in a brief tussle but caught by Hoseok’s leaves, and he pulls it closer to his pot. Seokjin nudges it a little farther from the sun lamp, even if Namjoon enjoys embarrassing himself trying to flirt with the crow; he doesn’t need anyone roasting to a crisp and disappearing among the carnivores they live with.

Although dead and not requiring any sort of sustenance, they all maintain healthy appetites and happily gain no weight.

When his knees are nearly knocked backwards by a duo of dogs throwing themselves into his legs, Seokjin decides it’s time for bed. Taehyung and Jimin can work out their differences, as long as they don’t destroy his furniture.

Whoever said they’ll sleep when they’re dead has no idea what they’re in for. Even when not working overtime, Seokjin is always on call, and souls can remain quite lively once departed from the laws of physics and polite society.

Seokjin wakes up to a sharp crash. Throwing himself out of bed, he doesn’t bother with his dark robe and slippers, skidding into the unliving area in nothing but bright pink pajama pants and serious bedhead.

Hoseok’s sniffling and climbing out of his pot, shaking his damp roots and avoiding the puddle on the floor and bending to collect his dropped petals.

“Taehyung, did you—?!”

“It was me,” Jimin interjects. Seokjin flinches at his sudden appearance. He’s not used to people flying in his house. The vampire flips rightside up and shows the broken bottle in his hand. “I bumped into it, and it fell onto him.”

Releasing a heavy sigh, Seokjin feels his shoulders relax. He feels inches shorter, with how much tension he releases. It’s not an important pretty, more pretty than anything else. The water had been blessed by one of the first popes, a gift when he had passed at the ripe old age of sixty-six.

“Is anyone hurt?” Hoseok’s still shaken up, but he always wilts a bit when startled, and Jungkook’s peeking from beneath the sofa. The others wave away concern and pick up the cushions, blankets, and accumulated knick-knacks from around the worlds that were loosened by overly excited paws.

Seokjin notices that Taehyung sticks his nose in Jimin’s hand and snorts. “You okay?”

The vampire nods and shows his hand. There’s a blackened, smoking mark over his palm and fingers. “Just burned. It’ll be fine.” Of course a vampire can’t touch something blessed, no matter how old he or it may be. Vampires are still damned, regardless.

After getting Hoseok a pot of fresh soil and coaxing Jungkook from the sofa, Seokjin returns to bed. He notices Jimin sitting low to the floor, cheek propped on his fist sullenly as Taehyung his burned hand.

Seokjin takes the broken bottle and draws the shards into it with a bit of magic he learned from a coven of witches back in the Middle Ages; he knows someone who can repair it.

“Both of you should go to sleep. Or meditate. Stare silently into the abyss—” He’s not sure when that got there, but something has claimed it at its home, and it’s probably why he loses so many socks. Most likely some kind of gremlin. “Just behave. Alright?” Or he will kill them. Again. A reaper needs his beauty sleep.

To be fair, the vampire boy is newer than the new werewolfish-dog and the first vampire Seokjin’s ever even met. On their lists, vampires’ names are grayed out but not crossed off, because they’re still sort of alive. Jimin’s death was mysterious; Seokjin came upon him alone in a snow-covered field. According to the list, he was freshly dead, yet there was no corpse. Just a small clearing where the snow had melted.

It’s an adjustment, for sure. But in no culture or world is it okay to destroy a kind, generous host’s possessions. Taehyung’s chewing the table legs is forgivable as stress, and Namjoon’s picking Hoseok’s seeds is just bird stuff. Jungkook still tries to intimidate with heavy thumps of his hind foot and clacking his teeth, but the most damage he does is contributing to the dust bunny population. They cover unsuspecting feet and try to open the tendons for their fluffy lord.

Seokjin returns to bed, confident in the ability to repair whatever broken things he finds in the morning, sleeps until the old cockatrice crows from its nest in his closet, and discovers his furniture isn’t completely destroyed but rather changed.

His previously pink-striped sofa is partly gray—with a deep gash down the center of a cushion and bits of stuffing erupting. The pink-painted bookshelf is gray. One of Hoseok’s once vibrant petals is gray and limp.

“Okay, what happened, and who did it?” The gremlin in the abyss hisses unhelpfully or maybe in warning, because Seokjin feels cool fingers at his neck and nearly dies again.

“Sorry.” Jimin shrinks down to the form of a flat-nosed bat and sits on Taehyung’s head. The pink of his nose is now gray, as well, and there’s a tuft of whie stuffing between his toes. “I just wanted to know if I could still do it.”

“Do what? Scare people to death?” He’s not sure if he was ever alive, he’s been a reaper for so long. Maybe this is the actual life of a reaper, and he’ll join the soul train stations waiting for wherever he’s supposed to go.

“Eat. I don’t drink blood; I drink red.” A vampiric rabbit that drinks coconut water; a vampiric boy who drinks colors. Supposed monsters have become vegan.

“Listen, Jimin… I know this is new and strange. I don’t know how long you’ll be here, but you’re welcome for as long as you’d like. Testing your abilities is normal. Shredding my sofa if not!” Taehyung looks away; if he can’t see Seokjin’s evil eye, he’s not guilty. “And the color out of things isn’t, either! What did you do to poor Hoseok?”

“He’ll be fine,” Jimin mumbles. “It’s just one petal.” It drops as they watch, and the peppy flower shakes his head with an airy laugh, apparently healed.

“Well, I have work to do. Try to resist your natural instincts for a while, okay?” For the sake of all things pink that he owns and adores. “Both the color-drinking and the whole vampire-werewolf competitive feud thing. Don’t chew on Jungkook. Do not try to ride the winged horse. If anyone calls, do not answer. Keep the oven closed; I don’t need more Hellhounds running around. And...yeah.” He draws his cloak over his shoulders. His scythes shine eagerly, holding his list between their blades. “Just behave. Make a really solid attempt.”

The duo smile, perfectly in-sync, and Seokjin might believe them, if they weren’t so cute.

Cats have multiple lives; vampires and were-things do not, but Seokjin will find a way to kill them again.

a/n: Written for Nopepng as part of Mythical Creatures Fest. (prompt As God of Death, it's Seokjin's job to collect souls of the dead to lead them to the afterlife. It can be a boring job sometimes; so he's started collecting rare and interesting souls and keeps them in his very own little realm. His collection includes a reverse centaur, a cow with a human face, a reverse mermaid, a fairy/mermaid hybrid that he likes to call a 'fairmaid', and numerous others. He does have favorites, though: like the were-bunny named Jungkook who thinks he's seriously dangerous when he's actually just seriously adorable; shape-shifting flower-hybrid Hoseok; the were-dog Taehyung, who's really just a werewolf that looks like a husky - And who is exactly the reason why his new discovery has Jin a bit nervous. Jimin - a dead vampire (ever seen a /dead vampire/ before? Yeah, neither has Jin). He just hopes him and Taehyung won't kill each other........or well, ruin his furniture.)