“I’m home!” I call, relishing the feeling of being in my true form again. It’s great to finally be home in the Underworld. Ignoring the lines of bowing servants that have gathered on either side of me, I call out to my butler, Sebastian, to bring the Memory Book to my room in five.

  You want to know if Sebastian’s real name truly is Sebastian? Well, the answer should be obvious, shouldn’t it?

  Hell no, but I stick to the traditional belief that all butlers must be called Sebastian. Call me mainstream, call me cruel, but I stick to my original assessment.

  I tend to go off track most of the time, but I suppose I get that from my mother, not that I’ve met her personally, but that’s another story, for another time and place. Right now, I’m too busy wondering why humans aren’t born with a set of wings, so that they might be able to float up the stairs, like what I’m doing right now.

  Silly evolution. Those humans don’t know what they’re missing.

  After I’ve finished levitating up thirteen flights of stairs to my room, I land on the soles of my feet and fold up my wings, before turning the cold, brass knob to my glorious room. Can you sense my sarcasm, or was it too subtle?

  Indeed, my glorious room may be black and plated with gold, but the inside is hardly flattering. There are files strewn everywhere, self-sprayed graffiti on the walls, canvases stacked in several corners of the room, notes covering every inch of the floor. Even the bed’s covered in a mountain of books and sketchpads.

  Artistic, I suppose humans would call it.

  Are you perhaps asking yourself what I do with all my maids and servants, besides making them bow respectfully every time I step through the front door? Well, I have strict instructions for them never to enter my room, or the library, on the sixth floor, with the exception of Sebastian, since I know he’ll never do anything.

  A knock on the door, a sound made by Sebastian, I suppose. Yet, when I open the door, a figure tackles me to the floor for the three seconds I allow myself to lie there, before I violently push the person off me and stand.

  “Owww,” my attacker complains childishly. “Couldn’t you just accept my affection, for once?”

  Kim Taehyung.

  My self-proclaimed boyfriend.

  “Get out of my room.” I kick Taehyung’s side hard, and he lets out a whine of protest. I know better than to pity him. He’s faking the pain as he clutches his side, giving me his wide-eyed puppy-dog stare.

  What can I say? I suppose after four hundred years of adorableness, you get used to it.

  “No,” Taehyung pouts, shooting to his feet. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen my jagi, and I’m going to stick close to you, so you can’t get rid of me!”

  Just as I’m about to open my mouth to shoot him a comeback, another knock sounds. I turn away from my persistent irritant and open the door, ignoring the protests of said pest. As expected, Sebastian is standing, stone-faced as usual, with a thick book clasped in outstretched hands.

  “Thank you,” I nod towards Sebastian, taking the book from his hands. “Do me another favour and get rid of Kim Taehyung will you? The wolfsbane gun is in the closet down the hall. Oh, and don’t forget to seal up whichever entrance he used this time.”

  Sebastian merely nods at my instructions. Like always. Kim Taehyung blubbers in indignation at my words. Like always.

  Within minutes, Taehyung is out of the mansion, and the entrance he used -the window of the bathroom on the fifth floor- had successfully been sealed with wolfsbane. Not that Taehyung’s a wolf or anything, oh no, he’s a hellhound, but it works like a charm.

I sit cross-legged on my bed, after pushing everything off in a heap, the Memory Book in my lap. It’s a bulky, leather-bound book, old and tattered, but not ripping. It will never tear. Inside it’s filled with the memories of those souls I have taken, hence the name. Each Reaper has their own book, and mine is Volume L.

  I flip to the pages that are glowing white, the most recent collection of memories. Park Hari’s. A total of one hundred and twenty three pages. Huh, one, two, three. A mildly interesting number that would catch your eye for the most fleeting number of seconds, before it becomes just another string of digits to be erased from your memory.

   Just like Park Hari. Soon she will be forgotten; just another kind, pretty girl.

  Somehow, the thought saddens me slightly.

  Just slightly.

A

  Here I am again. Here I am, on my way to meet another client. A client, who, for some reason, has chosen to stay anonymous, not that I mind a little surprise once in a while. Life gets boring after you’ve seen almost everything. I would know.

  This particular client lives near Busan; in Seoul, actually. Small world. Again, I’m not complaining. After all, I do have another portal in Seoul city, which makes it easier for me to travel there.

  As I stroll down the dark streets of Seoul, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched, which is plain ridiculous. I have no ties in this world, and no one should be able to see me, unless I let them. Yet, my gut-feeling’s screaming at me to be careful.

  This has never happened before, and it’s mildly disturbing, since I’m not sure what to expect.

  Abruptly, as I’m passing by a dark alley, an arm shoots out from the darkness, startling me. The fingers close around my forearm and yank me into the blackness. So cliché. I should have seen this coming a mile away.

  What I don’t expect is the throaty whisper in my ear. Five words that stop my outstretched hand from releasing the energy pent up in their tips.

  “I know what you are.”

  Just like that I stop trying to free myself from the hot palms pressed hard against my waist. Wrapping around it, trying to contain me.

  Impossible.

  There’s no way an outsider could have figured me out. Unless this is my client. You must be kidding me. No way.

  “Let me go.” I snap. This is utterly idiotic. If he is truly the one who had requested my presence, I should punch him in the face. Did he even read the manual -not that there was ever a physical manual- which clearly states that once the Devil is summoned, the summoner must stay within the premises of his home, awaiting the arrival of the Devil.

  How dare he.

  “Not until you take up my request,” the mystery attacker answers coolly. I can’t sense an ounce of fear in this person. What in Hell is he, and who does he think he is?

  “And what exactly are you going to do if I don’t?”

  “I’ll call an angel, just like how I called you, to destroy you.”

  At this, I can’t help but laugh, though his squeezing hands make it difficult. Does he think I’m some low level demon who can’t even summon a single bolt of energy from her body? Bull.

  “Even a thousand angels won’t possess enough power to kill me.”

  “Pity, that was Plan A,” my attacker loosens his death grip on my waist slightly, and though I’m tempted to zap him right there, I resist, for the sake of my curiosity. If anything, I’m more intrigued by what he’ll do next.

  “And what’s Plan B?”

  “This.”

  Unexpectedly, my fake client slides a hand further down, and I freeze. Does he know about that?

  “Are you going to-”

  I never get the chance to finish my statement. My knees buckle weakly and red-hot electricity flashes throughout my body.

  This person has a hand on my tail.

  Yes, I have a tail. And yes, I am extremely sensitive when it comes to my tail, even since I was in a crib, I hated anyone touching my tail in any way, and it’s a secret I’ve never revealed to anyone, except my father, and possibly my mother, but no one else.

  I immediately lose all strength in my legs and my fake client catches me with one hand, roughly pulling me by my arm to keep me up. How did he even find out? I suppose it doesn’t matter now, does it?

  “So how about it, Acantha-sshi? Do we have a deal?”

  Is there a single thing this male doesn’t know about me? He definitely has potential to become a master stalker. Owing to the fact that Mr. Bossypants still has a grip on the body part I call my tail, I can barely think straight, or stand straight, for that matter.

Can you tell?

  “Do I have a choice? No,” I answer as coherently as I can, painstakingly picking up the fragments of my pride. “So I’ll help you.”

  “Good.”

  Mystery stalker lets go of my tail, much to my relief, and I straighten myself and turn. Mr. Stalker -in human standards- has to be someone humans nowadays call a looker. Or was that during the ninetieth century? Anyway, the point is that my attacker has a pretty face.

  The end.

  So what if I gravitate to those with pretty faces? Don’t you?

  If I am to say Mr. Stalker has a pretty face, I suppose it’s only right of me to tell you what he looks like, isn’t it? Well, if I had to pick his most charming feature, I would have to say his eyes; they’re the largest I’ve seen in over five hundred years, and that’s saying quite a lot.

   “Pleasure to meet you, Acantha-sshi. You can call me D.O.”

A

  “So, what exactly is it you need, D.O?” I cross my legs across from my new client irritably. I’m not sure I like his nickname, so I suppose I’ll call him Squishy, owing to those soft-looking cheeks of his, and owing to the fact that he has yet to reveal his real name, and doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to do so.

  Or maybe I could call him Mr. I-don’t-like-to-follow-rules.

  “I want you to get rid of a few people for me.”

  Don’t they all? I snort at his choice of words. Mr. Squishy thinks I’m his servant, here to cater to his every wish and whim. What am I, a genie in a bottle, come to brighten his miserable life? In truth, the answer’s not far from it.

  “So, you felt the need to put this… this collar around my tail?”

  It’s true.

  Mr Squishy rulebreaker has indeed put a collar around my tail, and it’s not a normal collar, oh no. It’s a shock collar, bound with the tears of angels, which no being of darkness would be able to remove, and it stings my skin slightly.

  In other words, I am now D.O’s guard dog. Or slave for life. Take your pick. Each is just as bad as the other.

  “Just a little precaution,” D.O winks. “In case you change your mind.”

  The exact words I told Suho yesterday. Was he watching me even then or is it simply a coincidence? No, he was definitely watching me. D.O doesn’t seem the type to speak anything without a purpose, which is going to be disadvantageous for me.

  Well, .

Hey guise! Its been a month and I'm so sorry for not updating earlier OTL bcos of my other major ongoing fics (life wtwh) and also bcos procrastination school shizzus. I do not understand trigo.

Anywayyssss, our alien taehyung and our stalker D.O appear in chappie 2, did you guise like it so far? I have like a habit of moving really fast so do bear with me pwease and for those who waited a month lemme hug you /hugsssss/

Lastly, i love you all for reading rbsc and for your patience cos as i mentioned, i can't update this as fast as life or wtwh so thank you for waiting~

(p.s immainspiritvip aka vernice and i just opened a scenario blog on tumblr featuring infinite exo bigbang bangtan and block b so do support <3 inthatmomentwewereinfiniteot7 chyeah~)

Charismahamsterjjang OUT