Chapter Text
A soulmate is the one who possesses the soul destined to match your own.
Not like mirrors, or twins, as some of the myths claim - but rather, the perfectly complimentary puzzle piece made to align cosmically with yours.
Some mates grow to find one another as friends, and others as lovers; others still - in a strange sense - as sworn enemies. After all, a soulmate provides precisely that which the universe dictates you need, and for some, the thrill of bad blood and antagonism are what they desire most.
Soulmates are a sacred and wondrous thing, dictated by the universe, and the universe alone. Neither the angels - who guide celestial bodies and the Earthen mortals - nor the demons - who rule over the darkness of shadows and the hidden worlds below - have jurisdiction over the sanctity of matched souls.
In the end, many say that the mystery of how souls are matched and destined and divined are best left to the machinations of the fates who have handled them since the birth of stars.
“Where is he?”
Jimin stands, not very tall at all, but he may as well be a towering fortress for how he looms over the petrified demon before him. Draped in organza silk and sparkling with a series of glittering emeralds loped around his neck, fine leather boots capped to a menacing point, Lord Jimin - one of the highest ranking demons in the realm - is a force of nature, never to be trifled with.
He narrows his eyes in displeasure.
The demon stutters.
Jimin is ready to scream.
High above the castle walls, in the sky where there should have been nothing but inky blackness - stars, after all, have forsaken the world below - now lies a long, silvery line.
A rift.
A tear in the very fabric of space, threatening to grow larger by the passing minute, creating an unstable and highly dangerous link between their world and the human one.
Jimin grits his teeth with impatience. “You cannot mean to tell me that he has managed to run off, again, with not a single idiot who can tell me where-”
“He’s not on Earth.”
Jimin whirls on one heeled foot to face his Mate, just as the portal he’d arrived through dissipates behind him.
“I thought he might have run off there again, to look at those silly stars of his,” Yoongi sighs, shaking out his hair with a hand. The bracelets on his wrist rattle with the motion.
Jimin swallows down a scream, and the ornate chandeliers overhead tremble dangerously at his outrage.
They call this place the Edge.
The beginning (end?) of Taehyung’s hallowed realm, marked by jagged canyons carved out of the rusty red ground as though by some giant maw. There’s an absolute stillness, here, one that’s both profoundly unnerving as it is peaceful - depending on who one asks.
(Perhaps it’s a bit lonely, more than anything else.)
(Perhaps that’s precisely why it tends to attract those souls that are the loneliest of all.)
There’s nothing but rocks and dust for miles as far as the eye can see; carcasses littering the ground like a poignant afterthought.
It’s one saving grace is the way the atmospheric layer thins, here, enough such that on rare nights, some have sworn they can see the stars from the Earthen mortal realm from here.
With a soft, muffled thump, a pair of bespoke shoes - gleaming crocodile leather, curved to a sharp point and heeled austerely - land on the highest cliffside.
Just a few feet away, a lower level demon - inferior in every way, reduced to the form of a reptilian creature scrounging up whatever remnants it can in the way of food - hisses at the new presence. With a snarl, it turns, prepared to defend the area it’s claimed as it’s feeding grounds from the intruder-
-when it catches sight of who it is.
It freezes.
Taehyung’s lips curve into a slow and predatory smile, lined with something frightening in its unhurried ease.
A lion in the savannah, after all, has no concerns for the matter of sheep.
The demon squeaks.
Hurries to lower its head, because if there’s one thing that all creatures - weak or strong, inferior or mighty - understand on instinct, it’s the very fine dynamics of power. And who has it.
Taehyung’s eyes, lidded at half mast, flicker red for just a moment.
With a bleated cry of terror, the demon turns and flees.
And then, Taehyung is all alone.
Just the way he likes it. (Just the way it’s always been.)
A Prince of Hell is not crowned, but born.
That is: the thrones to the realms of Hell are governed not by any comprehensible system of monarchy – or even democracy – but rather, by the only metric that matters in such a forsaken world: power.
When a demon of such illustrious power is born, all nine realms are made immediately aware for the marked and perceptible shift in the very air – as though the folds of time and space had to reorient themselves so as to account for this new player.
When Taehyung was born, they say, all of Hell held their breath for days with the ripple effects of his birth, as entire mountains rose and kingdoms fell, as rivers dried up and seas sprung to life.
“I should have known he’d be a royal fucking pain in the ass,” Yoongi grumbles darkly. “When half the western lands cracked in two just at his birth.”
“The canyons in the north literally crumbled. To dust ,” Jimin says. “What did you expect?”
The two Lords share a scowl.
“At least it makes him easier to track,” Jimin huffs. Demons as powerful as they are don’t quite have the luxury of masking their presence - not when their very existence radiates outwards with the sheer energy of their power, like homing beacons for anyone skilled enough to track energy signatures.
The night air ripples as they flit through space, levitating far above the dusty grounds of the realm in their current search for their wayward prince.
“The angels are pissed as it is,” Yoongi mutters, eyes skimming the horizon for any hint of Taehyung’s presence. “We’ve let the rift go on for too long. A human almost got sucked dry by an incubus who broke through to Earth the other day.”
Jimin makes a low sound of displeasure. “If the angels are so upset, they should close the goddamn rift themselves.” On his shoulder, a black cat yowls in perfect harmony with Jimin’s angry tone, spectacular green eyes blinking brightly against the inky darkness of the night.
Yoongi snorts. “They can’t, you know that.”
Angels have no jurisdiction or control over the realm of Hell, no matter how great their power.
Only a Prince of Hell, whose powers are born of the very same ancient dust and bones of the realm, has the ability to fix the errant rifts that have begun to form as of late.
No one is sure how – or why – these rifts have begun to form; tears in the very fabric of space, violating those ordinary laws of the universe that they have all known to be true since the dawn of time, connecting Hell and Earth in ways that should not have been possible.
Just enough, that lower level demons have been able to cross over into Earth.
And so far, the only one strong enough to mend and close these rifts has been-
“Taehyung.”
Yoongi whips his head to watch as Jimin hurtles straight down, one hand outstretched-
-to wrap menacingly around the back of a slender, tanned neck, bringing the svelte figure crashing to the floor.
“…Fuck,” Yoongi hears a low voice curse, just as he lands gracefully on the ground in a much softer landing than his own Mate, who’d practically hauled Taehyung to pin him down. “Jimin, that fucking hurts-“
“As it should!” Jimin snaps.
Jimin stands, not bothering to offer Taehyung a hand. They’re on a dusty cliffside, miles above one of the great canyons that had been carved into the landscape in the wake of Taehyung’s birth just two hundred years ago.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jimin demands, and on his shoulder, Agust hisses.
Taehyung eyes it with distaste. “I’ll pull your whiskers out,” he murmurs lowly in lieu of answering Jimin, and the cat’s fur bristles menacingly.
“Lay a hand on him,” Jimin says sweetly, a knife’s edge to his saccharine tone. “I’ll gut you like a pig.”
Yoongi snorts, but it sounds adoring even to Taehyung.
Taehyung wrinkles his nose in distaste. Ugh. Soulmates.
Taehyung looks up at Yoongi from where he’s still sprawled on the floor, with seemingly no intention of bothering to get up. Yoongi nudges Taehyung’s leg with his foot. “There’s another rift,” Yoongi says, and watches Taehyung’s lips turn into a scowl.
And then, a long despairing groan as Taehyung flops down on his back, arms outstretched, hair fanning outwards like a crown. “Get someone else to do it,” Taehyung says.
“There isn’t anyone else,” Jimin says. “You know that.”
Taehyung sighs. “But I’m tired,” he says.
“You can rest after you close the rift,” Yoongi says firmly. “I don’t want the angels sending another envoy here to bitch and moan about us being ‘irresponsible’ and ‘neglecting our duties.’”
“They’re so annoying,” Jimin adds.
Together, they haul Taehyung up into standing with a hand under each of his armpits.
Taehyung makes a low noise of despair. “Don’t you two ever get tired of each other,” he huffs, plucking at his silken shirt with what resembles a pout on his features. “Always stuck at the hip as you run around, tormenting me.”
Jimin slides up to Yoongi with fluid grace, wrapping a lithe arm around his waist as Yoongi’s comes up to snake around his shoulders like a well choreographed dance. They sway together a bit, far too content for Taehyung’s liking.
“You’ll understand when you get your own Mate,” Jimin trills.
Taehyung’s expression cools, then, into something far more befitting a Prince of Hell than his previous expressions; something lofty and untouchable, filled with chilling apathy. “I don’t have one,” Taehyung says simply. “Remember?”
Not with tragedy, nor anger, as one might expect of such a statement.
Nothing at all, besides the simplicity of truth.
Yoongi and Jimin exchange a glance.
Most demon Mates are matched and found within a decade of their coming of age.
Yoongi had hardly waited four, before his soul creature – a small, precious chick – materialized one day atop his grand piano, chirping along to the haunting melody he’d been playing.
Taehyung has gone over a hundred years without the slightest hint of his soul creature manifesting.
Taehyung was born, they say, as the harbinger of calamity and treacherous things. He who was born into hellfire; whose birthright was all those terrible and wicked things, forged from the dregs of tragedy and the dark beyond of the realm below.
He, they say, who is so wicked, that even the fates who dictate soul bonds have forsaken him.
(Soulmates are sacred even to demons who worship no god and revel in sacrilege.)
Taehyung throws the two of them a glance over his shoulder, entirely unconcerned and mischievous around the edges. “You two are so glum,” he drawls. “It’s boring.”
And then, he unfurls his wings – great, powerful things of glossy black feathers capped in scarlet – and takes to the air.
Jimin sighs. Yoongi noses gently at his hairline, comforting in the way Jimin only finds in his Mate. “Taehyung’s Mate better come to him soon,” Jimin says. “He’s growing more insufferable by the day.”
Yoongi hums vaguely. “You think they’re out there somewhere?”
Jimin pinches him. “Of course Tae has a Mate,” he says firmly. A pause. “He needs one.”
The blare of a too-loud alarm shrills through the air precisely as the clock strikes five.
With a sleepy, exhausted hum, Jungkook just barely manages to sit up, eyes bleary and hair sticking up every which way. He squints a bit at the clock, a wry smile overtaking his lips as he takes in the still-dark landscape outside the window.
“Well,” he mutters to himself. “Rise and shine.”
His shift at the café – the new one, the extra one he had to pick up this semester to afford the rising price of textbooks – now starts so early he doesn’t even hear the birds chirping their usual morning tune.
Ever the optimist, Jungkook doesn’t mind. At least his job will afford him the free coffee he needs to stay awake for it.
Besides.
Today, there’s nothing that can get him down. Today’s the day before his twentieth birthday.
Because tonight, when the clock strikes twelve, he’ll finally have the thing he’s been dreaming about, for nearly his entire life.
His soul creature.
The piece of his soulmate’s soul that will come to him in the form of an animal that best represents his soulmate – the creature that will eventually help him find his Mate.
His other half.
The person the universe had destined him for, the person who Jungkook knows will be everything he could have ever dreamed of, and who Jungkook will love more than his own self. He knows so.
After all, Jungkook’s already been loving his soulmate – whoever they may be – for as long as he’s known about their existence. Jungkook’s spent nearly twenty whole years working hard to ensure that he grows into someone who can be good for his soulmate; who can love his soulmate the way he knows they’ll deserve to be loved.
Jungkook remembers being twelve at the orphanage, working hard to fold his clothes neatly and brush his teeth and excel at his studies; working hard to be the kind of boy someone might want to adopt, to be the kind of child who could have a family.
Jungkook never did end up managing to get adopted, but.
It’s alright.
He’ll have his soulmate soon, after all.
And Jungkook is going to love his soulmate so much. Going to be the best Mate his soulmate could possibly ask for, going to be the kind of person his Mate deserves.
His soulmate will be his family.
It’s this thought that gives him more joy than anything in the world. Makes him giddy with excitement, cheeks growing ruddy with effervescent happiness as he daydreams of what kind of person they might be – this person who was made for Jungkook, and Jungkook alone.
And tonight, he’ll receive his soul creature.
Jungkook can hardly wait.
“This is way too early to be awake, let alone work. This should be criminal.”
Jungkook laughs, far too bright for an hour where the sun hasn’t even emerged yet, as he pulls down the lever on the espresso machine. Hoseok eyes him incredulously from behind the counter, where he’s just ordered his drink.
“You’re awake now too, hyung,” Jungkook says cheerfully, eyes still drowsy at the corners as he finishes making Hoseok’s drink.
“Yeah, but I’m always awake,” Hoseok points out. It’s true. Hoseok hardly ever sleeps at normal hours - it’s a running joke that he’s practically nocturnal. “Seriously, Jungkook, if you need money I can help you out, this extra shift of yours is insane-”
“It’s fine,” Jungkook insists firmly. He slides the cup forward, smile genuine but unrelenting. Hoseok sighs.
He’s been trying to help Jungkook - with no avail - for years. He shouldn’t have expected Jungkook to cave now.
“Besides,” Jungkook adds, voice picking up with excitement. “I couldn’t sleep well last night anyway.”
Hoseok glances at him in question, before a knowing expression falls on his features. “Ah.”
Jungkook practically beams as he tinkers with the register, happiness so thick it’s practically tangible.
“You’re turning twenty tomorrow,” Hoseok says.
“At midnight,” Jungkook corrects, as though even the prospect of tomorrow is too far away.
Hoseok laughs at him, though it’s fond more than anything. Everyone knows just how excited Jungkook is for his soulmate bond to manifest; Jungkook practically waxes poetic about the magical virtue of soulmates once a week, after all.
“With your excitement, you’d think your soulmate is going to be some kind of prince from a Disney movie,” Hoseok drawls, taking a sip.
Jungkook rolls his eyes at him. “As if you don’t act like the ground your Mate walks on is practically holy land,” he huffs.
At the mention of his mate, Hoseok’s entire expression shifts into something dopey and sappy and undeniably smitten. Jungkook would tease him for it, but he can’t help the way his own expression turns soft and wistful as he glances down at Hoseok’s soul creature - the adorable little corgi, sitting dutifully at Hoseok’s heels.
“That’s because my Yeonjun is basically an angel,” Hoseok sighs.
“Gross.”
Hoseok would retaliate by outlining all the ways in which Jungkook’s been gross about his soulmate - the one he hasn’t even met yet - when the cafe’s door swings open, revealing Seokjin and Namjoon. Beside them walks a beautiful, peony-pink flamingo; Namjoon’s soul creature, the living manifestation of the piece of Seokjin’s soul that had helped the two destined Mates find one another.
Even though it isn’t visible, Jungkook knows with certainty that Seokjin’s soul creature - the most spoiled hermit crab in the world, for whom Seokjin’s bought over a hundred different shells - is lounging comfortably in Seokjin’s coat pocket.
“Hyungs!” Jungkook perks up, already turning around to prepare their favorite drinks without even the need to hear the order.
“This is way too early,” Seokjin says in lieu of a greeting. “I need eight hours of sleep a night to maintain this ethereal beauty of mine, and your shift is going to ruin it.”
Hoseok snorts.
“Don’t be silly, Jin,” Namjoon says absentmindedly as he peruses the row of books the cafe always has in stock on a shelf. “Nothing could diminish how lovely you are, you know that.”
Hoseok lets out an agonized screech at that, and Jungkook makes a gagging motion where he’s swirling in the milk into Seokjin’s latte.
Privately, though, all Jungkook can feel is giddiness; where he’d previously felt longing and a quiet tinge of envy at all those who’d already met their soulmates, today, he’s practically brimming with excitement at the prospect of finally meeting his own.
Seokjin coos and waltzes over to where Namjoon’s flipping through a book that’s caught his interest, throwing his arms over his shoulders and pressing an obnoxiously loud kiss to his cheek. “The sweetest, buffest man in the world,” Seokjin simpers, lips curling into a smile at the bashful protest Namjoon gives, cheeks coloring pink.
“Hyung, what shell is Aphrodite wearing today?” Jungkook asks, and Seokjin lights up.
He swans over to the counter, and pulls said crab out of his coat pocket to place on the counter with a dramatic flourish.
“Is that- is that a bejeweled hermit crab?” Hoseok wheezes.
Seokjin preens. “Swarovski crystals.” The crab, Jungkook swears, puffs with pride. “Nothing less for my beloved Joonie’s soul,” he adds, and then it becomes infinitely sweeter, as ridiculous as the sight of the gleaming, glittering crab on the counter is.
“This dumb crab is worth more than my car,” Hoseok mutters.
“Aphrodite is worth more than your life,” Seokjin corrects, completely and terrifyingly serious.
“Anyways,” Namjoon coughs, forcibly paying for their coffees even though Jungkook tries to insist it’s on the house. (And as he does so, Seokjin slips an extra twenty dollar bill into the tip jar while Jungkook is distracted). “We just wanted to come by and see how you’re faring on your first shift here.”
Jungkook smiles shyly, pleased and touched in turns. “You didn’t have to,” he says.
Seokjin smiles at him with far more affection than he usually laves upon people other than Namjoon. There’s just always been something about this boy - this boy, who treats every act of kindness like it’s a precious gift he couldn’t have ever anticipated, despite being the most endearing and precious person around - that makes Seokjin helpless but to look after him.
“And,” Seokjin says. “We wanted to invite you out to dinner tomorrow. For your birthday.”
Jungkook beams, though it’s tempered soon after with a small grimace. “I can’t,” he says apologetically. “I have a shift at the store.”
Hoseok makes a noise of disbelief. “How many jobs are you even working, Jungkook-”
Jungkook busies himself with fixing another cup of coffee, as cheery as ever. “Not as many as I’d like,” he chirps, and the three others share an exasperated look.
“But it’s your birthday,” Seokjin sighs. “At least let us get you a gift, then.”
“Nope,” Jungkook grins. “Besides. I’m, you know. Getting my soul creature.”
Jungkook’s smile, then, could have lit up an entire room on its own. “That’s the only gift I need.”
Seokjin leans forward on the counter with his elbows braced. “You’re so... into the idea of your soulmate,” he murmurs, eyes bright and inquisitive where they peer at Jungkook over the rim of his cup. “What are you going to do if they don’t measure up to your expectations?”
Jungkook pauses.
“We just don’t want you being disappointed,” Namjoon says, not unkindly.
“I won’t,” Jungkook says.
It only makes the three of them exchange another worried glance. Jungkook frowns.
“I’m not- I’m not expecting anything of them,” Jungkook says. “I just. I don’t need them to be anything, or do anything.”
Jungkook plays with the edges of a napkin and bites his lip. He shrugs. “They’re- they’re the one person in the entire world, that...that was made for me.” For Jungkook, that means...everything.
Jungkook, who’d lost both his parents to a car accident at a young age; Jungkook, who’d been left without a family in the world, let alone a home, for much of his formative years.
Jungkook, who’d nonetheless learned to persevere as best as he could with a brighter smile than most, who’s been perfectly cheerful as he works harder than everyone else to put himself through college.
“They- they gave me hope,” Jungkook admits quietly.
When Jungkook is seven in his first year at the orphanage and he names his favorite (his only) childhood plush toy Bunny and whispers to it that they’re family, now, because he’s frightened and alone and Bunny is all he has; when Bunny becomes precious to him as one of the few constant companions he’s had in his life, such that Bunny still sits on his bed today, preciously cared for.
When Jungkook is sixteen in the orphanage without any prospects for adoption, because he’s now too old and parents don’t really want older children; when he watches cheesy Hallmark movies with an inexorable twinge in his chest for the simple warmth of scenes of family gatherings around the Christmas tree, because he’s never managed to get a taste of that (to his memory, at least).
When Jungkook is eighteen and has to matriculate out of the orphanage because he’s of age, and his foster mother is heartbroken to see him go and apologetic and devastated, and all Jungkook can do is muster a tremulous but brave smile against the prospect of facing the big, vast world on his own.
When Jungkook is nineteen and looking at the cost of college with a petrified eye, because how is anyone ever supposed to afford it on their own? When he sits there desperately circling newspaper clippings for jobs and trying to do the horrifying math to discover the number of hours of minimum wage jobs he’d have to work to try to keep himself afloat, and wonders if a college degree is really going to be worth all this--
He’d thought of his soulmate.
Of the fact that somewhere, there was someone out there in this great big, vast world, who would eventually come to find him.
That there was someone destined for him. That he had someone with whom he’d belong, for the first time, like he’d always longed for. Someone who he could call home.
And then Jungkook had thought to himself, his soulmate deserves someone they can be proud of.
And Jungkook would go on, persevering.
“I have my soulmate to thank for who I am today,” Jungkook beams, radiant with the simple joy of having someone for whom his heart swells with such affection. “For me, that’s-”
Jungkook bites his lip. “I love them for that.”
And, well.
What can anyone say, in the face of that?
When Jungkook finishes his night shift at the convenience store, he’s exhausted and ready to collapse into bed. His shift that was originally meant to finish at ten ends up wrapping up near midnight, and by the time he manages to stumble out of the store, he’s so tired he’s entirely forgotten it’s the eve of his birthday.
So tired, in fact, that when he decides to duck into the dimly lit alley as a shortcut on his way home, he’s entirely oblivious to the fact that he isn’t alone.
It isn’t until he hears the hissing halfway through the alley, that Jungkook notices anything at all.
And then-
And then, Jungkook notices everything all at once, as his sense grow alert.
The way the air abruptly feels as though it’s dipped into a frigid chill cold enough to make him shiver - despite the fact that it’s mid-summer. The way there’s something about the way the shadows dance, growing inexplicably darker and foreboding before his very eyes.
The way there’s the faintest hint of sulfur, lingering in the air.
The way there’s something here, something that sets off alarms in the very basest of Jungkook’s instincts, eliciting goosebumps along his arms even when his conscious mind cannot yet grasp the looming danger.
“What-”
A wild shriek cuts him off.
Jungkook stumbles backwards in alarm.
And then, from the shadows, lunges something moving too quickly for him to discern; it’s something terrible and horrifying and, most of all, ravenous. (The most frightening thing in the world, Jungkook learns then, is a creature so clearly starved for you that you can discern its hunger, despite the fact that you can’t make out any of its actual features).
All Jungkook sees is a the shadowy outline of a foul creature; the wide, gaping pit of its maw, row of multitudinous fangs gleaming in the scant moonlight and the glow of red eyes-
Jungkook turns to run.
He hears it, thumping behind him at an alarming rate that makes his heart pound so wildly it threatens to tear its way out of his chest. Hears it snarling and shrieking with outrage, a cacophonous din unlike any sound in the world.
Smells the putrid stench of sulfur as it closes in on him, closer, and closer, until he can practically feel its breath on his nape-
-and then he trips.
Goes stumbling down, scraping his knees and palms but unable to pay it any mind as he whirls around, just in time to see the thing leap straight for him.
There’s something strangely transfixing about the impending sight of his own doom, such that Jungkook can’t even bear to close his eyes and look away.
That’s why he sees what happens next so clearly.
There’s another snarl, first, but it’s not from the thing in front of him. No, it’s lower in pitch, far less gruesome and warped than the alien sounds the thing in front of him had made; and it comes from behind him.
Then comes the black blur, hurtling clean over his head and landing in front of him, planting itself squarely between the creature and Jungkook.
The creature freezes.
As though it recognizes whatever it is, that’s just arrived.
There’s a split second where it almost looks like the creature is going to turn tail and run, for some strange reason, but it never gets the chance.
Because now, it’s this new arrival that’s lunging, throwing itself at the creature that had been hunting Jungkook down just moments ago - and then, the predator becomes the prey.
Jungkook clenches his eyes shut against the sight, but he can still hear the sickening crunch and splurt as the new arrival clearly, unmistakably, mauls the creature. Can hear its dying wails, even more wretched and awful than its pants and snarls of hunger.
Then, silence.
It’s the clicking of claws on the ground that makes Jungkook’s muscles tense up in terror anew, scramble backwards as best as he can out of instinctual fear, eyes still screwed shut.
Oh my god, he thinks. I’m going to die.
Feels his back hit the cold brick wall on one side of the alley, and the way his heart sinks like a stone.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, he’s going to die, torn to pieces by whatever creature lurks in these damnable alleys that Seokjin-hyung always told him to avoid, but he never listened, and now-
Something licks him.
Jungkook freezes.
It licks him.
Not in the threatening, “I’m going to eat you” kind of way, but in the-
Jungkook cracks an eye open.
Looks into bright red eyes, blinking owlishly at him in a way that is strangely endearing. A snout, just inches from his own nose. Sharp fangs, peeking out from an open mouth. Triangular ears, perked up in alert awareness.
Stares, heart pounding, at what’s unmistakably a tail, wagging gently; at the tongue - no doubt, what had just licked his cheek - hanging out of the creature’s mouth in an expression that can only be described as a canine smile.
As Jungkook stares, wide-eyed and disbelieving, the creature nudges forward to press its nose softly against Jungkook’s own, ears flicking.
And something in Jungkook shifts.
Something in the very center of his chest, aligning itself as though a missing piece had finally, finally slotted home. As though there’s this inexplicable warmth, diffusing all throughout his body, stemming right from where his heart would be.
Oh.
“Oh,” Jungkook breathes.
He scrambles to check his watch.
12:06.
“Oh my god,” Jungkook whispers.
The creature nuzzles at Jungkook’s cheek again, and Jungkook can feel tears pricking at his eyes. “You’re my soul creature,” he manages to say, before promptly throwing his arms around it and burying his face into the top of its head.
“What the fuck is that.”
Jungkook looks up from where he’s brushing Gureum’s fur with a fine bristled brush he’d purchased that very morning from the pet store. “It’s a brush,” he says slowly, as though the answer is something obvious.
In the doorway are huddled three people who’d yet to take a single step further into the apartment after having joyously spilled inside to meet Jungkook’s soul creature.
“No,” Hoseok says. “Not the brush, what- what- what the fuck,” he wheezes.
Jungkook frowns at him. “You okay, hyung? Are you sick or something-”
“Jungkook,” Seokjin says, voice urgent and eyes wide where they stare at the thing curled up in Jungkook’s lap. “Jungkook, what the hell is on your lap right now, what is-”
“It’s Gureum!” Jungkook beams, petting his head.
“And what,” Namjoon clears his throat. “What…. is Gureum?”
Jungkook wrinkles his nose at them. “A dog,” he says. “Duh.” He sounds like he’s concerned for the three who’ve failed to identify what is so clearly, very obvious.
“Duh,” Seokjin echoes faintly.
“Jungkook,” Hoseok says hoarsely. “That- that thing is not a dog.”
Jungkook scowls. “Excuse you!” He promptly wraps his arms lovingly around the creature, and the three of them wear vague expressions of horror and disbelief as the creature nuzzles Jungkook’s cheek.
“Jungkook, if that’s a dog, then I’m a fucking squirrel,” Hoseok says.
“You do look like a squirrel,” Jungkook says smoothly, planting a kiss on top of the creature’s head.
Seokjin chokes at the gesture.
“That- it has red eyes,” Seokjin exclaims.
Jungkook rolls his eyes, as though Seokjin is being particularly daft. “Albinism is a real condition, hyung, you’re being very rude.”
“Jungkook,” Namjoon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose against a migraine. “Albinism is literally a lack of pigmentation in the hair and eyes.”
“Yeah?”
“Its fur is black, Jungkook.”
“Anyways,” Jungkook continues, cooing at the creature sprawled heavily across his lap, given the fact that it’s practically almost as large as Jungkook himself. “Gureum is the sweetest, most perfect darling, and I love him.”
Gureum barks happily. Licks Jungkook’s cheek.
“Dude,” Hoseok says. “That thing’s eyes aren’t just red, they’re- they’re like- glowing-”
Jungkook cups Gureum’s face lovingly, beaming down at him. “Isn’t he gorgeous,” he coos. “His eyes practically sparkle!”
Hoseok muffles a despairing groan. “That’s not what I was saying-”
“Oh gods,” Seokjin breathes. “It’s tail is forked, what the hell-”
Indeed, at the very tip of the creature’s tail - far too long to be an actual dog’s, wrapped loosely around Jungkook’s waist protectively - is a strange, two-pronged spearhead. A sharp spearhead. Lethally sharp.
“He’s perfect,” Jungkook declares.
Wraps a pretty red ribbon around his neck and ties it into a bow, as Seokjin staggers back, faint. Hoseok splutters.
“The best dog, in all the world,” Jungkook croons.
Namjoon swears, then, that as Gureum looks up at them, the unholy thing is grinning. Smugly.
Taehyung is in the middle of holding court (against his will, he’d point out, forcibly held there by Jimin’s wrath) when it happens.
He’s sprawled sideways on his throne, long legs crossed and thrown over an armrest, cheek propped on curled fist with a bored expression on his features as one of his subjects babbles on and on about some petty grievance or another.
“-I find that the scoundrel has been practicing his twice-blasted alchemy on my lands, and utterly destroyed the soil to trash-”
In his head, he’s debating the merits of making a break for it.
Of how far he might be able to make it, before the banes of his existence manage to track him down again.
In the back of his mind, though, he knows he’ll never get far. Not with his level of power, too immense to ever hope to hide undetected anywhere in the nine realms of Hell without any self-respecting demon able to track him easily and quickly.
There’s the ring of his trusted advisors - more often than not, seats filled primarily by order of power - behind him, and a sizeable crowd of attendees before him.
“-and he has the audacity to say, your wicked Majesty, that he is entitled to the southern plots of the land that has been in my noble family’s rightful possession for generations, ” the demon currently in front of him raves, red-faced and hands waving wildly in the air.
Taehyung’s lids droop a scant lower.
Even Jimin, ever the fuss about Taehyung upholding his “proper duties as a Prince,” looks about one more fact about soil degradation away from setting the room on fire if it’d put an end to this misery.
As it is, Taehyung’s very seriously contemplating the merits of causing a fissure in the ground below as a means of distraction to slip away (he’s sure only one or two demons would be fatally harmed, and that the pain he’s currently in is much greater)--
The double doors rattle.
Silence descends upon the room in a heartbeat.
Holds, for one breath, two, and then--
The doors blow open, utterly destroyed and hanging precariously off the hinges.
Shrieks fill the air as members of the demon gentry express outrage and startled indignance, and for a moment, there’s a cloud of dust that obscures Taehyung’s line of sight where he blinks lazily at the door, one brow raised.
Behind him, he can feel Jimin and Yoongi tense in tandem, spines stiffening warily at a possible imminent threat. Taehyung remains where he is, still sprawled vulnerably - carelessly - across the throne, entirely unbothered by the fray.
For a moment, it’s as though the world is suspended in motion, breaths held in wait for something to break.
Taehyung’s eyes, though lidded in a display of boredom, are steady when they remain fixed on the entrance still clouded in swirling dust.
There’s a flash of metal, for just a second.
Taehyung’s eyes blink.
And as though materializing out of nothing, flying too quickly for most to notice by the time it’s too late, a massive sword hurtles straight through the air and directly towards the space between Taehyung’s eyes.
In the background, there’s the dim sound of screams as several demons take notice at last - just as the fatal point of the sword reaches the few inches right before Taehyung’s face.
“Taehyung-!” Yoongi shouts, one hand outstretched.
Jimin swears furiously.
And then, nothing.
Because the sword is hung in place, spinning slowly, idly, as its point faces Taehyung down from a mere inch before his eyes. But it remains there, suspended in place; not moving a hair closer despite the ferocity with which it’d hurtled towards him just moments before, set to impale his skull through to the throne.
Taehyung yawns impassively.
“Excellent skills as always, your Majesty,” a voice sneers. It sounds derisive more than complimentary.
The dust begins to settle.
There’s the shadowy outline of a figure in the battered doorway.
“Surtr,” Jimin hisses.
From the rubble and into the light steps an elegant figure, far more lithe than one might anticipate from a name as staunch as Surtr. Skin glowing red, as though dipped for just a moment in a watercolor paint of burgundy; dark hair, flowing silkily over arched shoulders; eyes glimmering underneath the swaying chandeliers.
Surtr doesn’t even glance Jimin’s way.
His eyes remain pinned on Taehyung, who tilts his head to the side. “Is this supposed to be a gift, or,” Taehyung drawls, raising an elegant brow towards the sword he’s held aloft in the air.
Considering how much supernatural force it’d been launched with, it would have taken an extraordinary amount of power to have halted such a thing in its tracks. But from the expression on Taehyung’s face - bored, bored, bored - it’s impossible to tell that it’d taken him any effort at all, to have stopped this gargantuan force from sinking straight into his eye.
Surtr’s smile settles into something hateful at the sight of the unbothered prince.
Yoongi mutters under his breath and drags a hand down his tired face.
Surtr’s one of the remaining demons from the older generation; part of one of the most powerful bloodlines in all of Hell. He’d been the prime candidate that many expected to be crowned the ruler of their realm, when Taehyung’s birth - marked by such overwhelming power that no one could dispute his place as Prince - had disrupted all of that.
He’s been a thorn in their side for ages, making snide comments about how clearly unsuited Taehyung is for the throne; how his power must have been more rumor than truth, given how unassuming and meek he is.
Spinning words to twist Taehyung’s general ambivalence and laziness into something more along the lines of weakness.
Jimin’s had half a mind to declare him a treasonous snake and toss him out into the abyss among the forsaken in-between marking the no man’s land that no realm covers, but Taehyung, well.
Hasn’t cared enough to deal with Surtr.
And now Surtr is here. Hijacking Taehyung’s court, having just hurled his infamous weapon - the great sword that had once conquered Lilith, they say, generations ago - right at the prince’s face.
“This is outright treason, you realize,” Jimin says, stepping up to Taehyung’s side.
Surtr’s smile is treacherous. “Yes,” he says. “That is; if he remains the Prince, after this.”
Surtr steps into the middle of the room, practically glowing with pleasure. “I, Surtr of the Sixth Realm, hereby challenge the current holder of the Crown for the rightful place of Prince,” he declares.
There’s an instant upswell in the room, as whispers ripple throughout the crowd. Yoongi narrows his eyes as Jimin barely withholds a snarl.
And from their own illustrious prince--
“Ugh.”
Silence.
Taehyung sinks lower into his seat, rolling his eyes. Surtr’s face twists into one of outraged indignance as Yoongi muffles a snort into his hand, but Taehyung only stares up at the ceiling with despair. “Again?” he sighs.
In a land where power trumps all in regards to a claim to the throne, it’s no surprise that ancient law continues to dictate that challengers are free to issue their own claim whenever they desire - and to the victor goes the spoils.
Taehyung is the newest Prince to have ascended in centuries. The other rulers have held their thrones for far longer than Taehyung has ever been alive; and with age, for immortals, comes increasing power.
For all those greedy and eager challengers, Taehyung - despite his infamous tremendous power - presents what seems to be the easiest route.
This is the sixth challenge in the last month.
Taehyung is so tired.
He waves a hand in the air, the other still propping his chin. “You can just have it,” he says.
The room swells with cacophony once more. Surtr’s expression goes slack-jawed with stupor. “Fucking Taehyung,” Yoongi says.
“Here,” Taehyung says, standing up and dusting off his pants. He gestures grandly to the throne he’s just stood up from. “All yours, my friend.”
“That crazy bastard,” Jimin huffs. Taehyung’s hated all the frills and duties that come with being a Prince of Hell, sure, but he’d never thought he’d be so crazy as to simply give up the realm without a fight. “Taehyung, so help me-”
He doesn’t have a chance to finish his sentence, for the sword - still spinning lazily in the air just beside Taehyung’s head - begins to rattle violently. Its movement is strange and stilted, as though caught between two warring forces.
Taehyung blinks.
“You dare,” Surtr’s voice is dipped low into something mutinous, all traces of false pleasantry gone from their features. “To mock me?”
With a snarl, Surtr jerks his head, and the sword breaks free of Taehyung’s control and comes spinning back to land deftly in Surtr’s outstretched hand. “Come, Princeling,” Surtr says darkly. “I will take that throne from your unworthy hands. But I will take it from your cold, dead fingers.”
Taehyung looks like he wants to sigh again.
The sword in Surtr’s hand comes to life, lighting up with an eerie glow. “Summon your weapon of choice,” he says, leveling the tip of the sword in Taehyung’s direction.
Taehyung drags his feet in stepping down from the raised dais upon which the throne sits, into the clearing in the center of the marble floor. Inwardly, he curses.
He should have escaped when he had the chance.
“You mean to fight with your bare hands like a savage?” Surtr sneers, twirling the sword deftly around his hand.
He doesn’t wait for a reply. Instead, he leaps, crossing the entire expanse of the floor in a single step, sword raised high as though to come down on Taehyung’s head.
Someone in the crowd gasps.
Surtr is the eighteenth head of one of the most revered dynasties in the realm. It’s apparent, now, in the way the very space ripples where they move, as though his being defies the ordinary laws of the universe.
The sword shimmers, and there are not a few demons among the spectators who grow breathless at the heavy, menacing aura suffocating the atmosphere from the weapon’s sheer power.
Taehyung doesn’t move.
“Fool,” Yoongi murmurs.
Surtr descends with the sword poised to swing, eyes ablaze with the glee of one who can taste imminent victory on their tongue. Anyone can see that one blow from the sword will be enough to disintegrate even the most powerful of demons.
“Your arrogance, too lazy to even summon a weapon with which to defend yourself,” Surtr laughs, the edge of their blade coming in directly for Taehyung’s neck. “-will be your death.”
The blade makes contact with Taehyung’s neck-
-and explodes.
As though the very point of contact had set off an explosive, Surtr is flung outwards with a sudden and ferocious burst, and the smell of burnt lightning fills the air. A spectacular crash, where the skylight shatters with the force of Surtr’s prone body slamming against it.
The spectators are frozen still as statues.
“As though Taehyung needs something as trivial as a weapon,” Jimin murmurs.
Taehyung stretches his neck to one side, as though working out a crick. The cracked and misshapen remnants of what was once one of the most powerful weapons in Hell clatters to the floor, nothing more than scrap metal.
A thump as Surtr’s body - half of it charred beyond recognition, as though having simply melted away into a blackened nothingness - violently crashes back down on the floor, just inches from Taehyung’s feet. There’s a sickening lurch as Surtr’s body tears upon the collision, and a spray of red fans outwards to paint Taehyung’s chest.
“By all the wicked things,” someone murmurs faintly in the crowd.
There is a reason, after all, that they say all nine realms had flickered for just a moment, at Taehyung’s birth - as though the entire universe could not help but to pay their respects for the tremendous power that had just been born.
And as Taehyung stands there, blinking slowly, cheek splattered with the blood of the challenger he’d so effortlessly reduced to nothing, something happens.
Yoongi’s eyes widen.
“Taehyung,” Jimin breathes, delighted.
Taehyung frowns.
Taehyung was born, they say, as the harbinger of calamity and treacherous things.
He who was born into hellfire; whose birthright was all those terrible and wicked things, forged from the dregs of tragedy.
He, they say, who is so wicked, that even the fates who dictate soul bonds have forsaken him.
Taehyung, whom they call Astaroth, the Great Duke of Hell.
And as Taehyung - Astaroth, prince of Edom, being most Wicked in all the infernal lands as far as the eye can see - receives what can only be his soul spirit, manifesting in front of him, the entire immortal world holds its breath.
Waits, for whatever horrifying, world-rending, cataclysmic terror will undoubtedly be wrought by this horrendous creature - for surely, the soul destined to match Taehyung’s must be a terrible one.
“It will be a three-headed beast to rival even Cerberus,” someone murmurs in the crowd.
“Surely, it will be a cyclops-”
“-no, something more fearsome than even Bahamut-”
And yet.
As the spirit manifests, demons gasp.
“Is that-”
The realm falls still.
Their crown prince, their pride and joy, his royal highness most evil in all of hell’s history - stands beside a small, innocuous bunny.
Taehyung stares.
Stares, down at this small, inexplicably fluffy ball of fur, sitting innocuously in front of him with a wriggling pink nose and twitching tail. Stares, with Surtr’s blood still dripping down one cheek, staining his hair.
The bunny looks up at Taehyung, eyes bright and round and uncomfortably reminiscent of the Earthen stars Taehyung so obsesses over.
It hops.
Once, twice, until it’s sitting primly on the very tip of Taehyung’s fiercely pointed boot, looking strangely like a sacrilege with the way it’s fluffy white fur starkly contrasts against the dark leather.
Taehyung blinks again, this time in disbelief.
No; this tiny little ball cannot be--
The bunny touches its pink nose to Taehyung’s leg, and the world shifts into alignment all at once inside of him.
Taehyung’s eyes widen.
“Taehyung,” Jimin bursts, unable to hold his glee any longer. “You have a soulmate!”
Fuck.