Bargain (Not Met) (JungHope)

Deal with an Angel

A mundane office stood around Hoseok; its walls painted with a starch white color that held no decorations nor windows to gaze out of; the desks that were crammed three to a cubicle had the look and feeling of being freshly wiped clean, and when Hoseok shuffled into one of the endless lines of cubicles, he leaned over the surface of one of the desks and saw a faint, murky reflection of himself looking back--its features profoundly disoriented and had the effects of rippling water along the edges.

That was enough of a clue for Hoseok to realize he was merely dreaming. Though a nightmare of a dream, a dream nonetheless that he would soon wake from.

Reassured that he wasn't back in the office without the memory of how he had gotten there, Hoseok breathed a sigh of relief and wandered further down the endless rows of cubicles, hands folded neatly behind his back. Hoseok gazed around at his surroundings, and although the environment never changed from that of which the office worker saw at the entrance (if he could call it that), it still fascinated him every time he saw another ripple flow across the surface of a desk and heard the sound of rushing water whenever he happened to pass a grimy escritoire.

His feet carried him onward down the humdrum aisle, and it seemed as though the office was never-ending before a soft voice spoke out to him: "I don't get very many visitors."

Hoseok would have liked to say that he turned in the direction the voice came from calmly, but that just wasn't true; he had let out an ear-piercing shriek before whirling around toward the mutter, knocking over a wall of a cubicle in the process. He would have felt embarrassed--both from his earlier screech and damaging private property (it's a dream Hoseok, get over it)--but when he managed to catch sight of the person that had spoken out to him, he froze; his words had gotten themselves tangled up into a garble of grunts and whimpers as he continued to stare down at the shock of a man, who had since crouched down against the wall of another cubicle.

The man offered him a smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes and looked painfully forced. "So, you wanna chill and talk maybe?" He shrugged his shoulders, lowered his gaze down toward the ground, and pushed his feet out from underneath himself, stretching them out in front of his body and swaying his feet to and fro. "Though I must admit, the only reason people end up here is that they've met somebody they shouldn't have."

He chanced a glance and stared up at the still bewildered office worker. "So you might want to skip the small talk."

Hoseok shook his head and lowered his arms and legs, which had been suspended in the air from shock and stayed up from Hoseok trying to wrap his head around the words coming out the man's mouth. He studied the man that sat in front of him, eyebrow cocked upward as he attempted to figure out if the man was even real; his raven bangs were trimmed neatly and drooped just above his eyebrows, showing off his chocolate eyes that bore right back into Hoseok's; the overall shape of his face was small and round, accessorized by his full cheeks and plump lips; the clothes he wore hung loosely on his frame and fanned out against the rugged carpet, and looked like they would be worth more than Hoseok's entire apartment.

Glancing back up at the man's face, Hoseok could tell that the man wouldn't be the kind of person he'd meet in his everyday life; to say the least, he looked angelic.

"I know you told me to skip the small talk," Hoseok sighed, crouching down onto the ground, "but I don't think you're just a figment of my imagination, so I'm gonna ask you one question: who are you?"

The man grew an amused grin before shrugging and leaning further back against the cubicle wall, which held his weight surprisingly well. "Well, my name's Park Jimin, and you're right. I'm not a silly little creation of your imagination: I'm an angel from Heaven sent to keep an eye on you."

Hoseok's eyes widened, and he couldn't help himself when he blurted out: "Why are all the otherworldly beings being sent to me all of a sudden?"

Jimin chuckled and lightly brushed away a stray piece of hair that was threatening to get in his line of vision. "Well, that demon--Jungkook, was it?--was sent to you because he wants to feed off your negative energy--"

The building suddenly began to rumble around them, startling Hoseok onto his rear end. He whipped his head around wildly in search of signs that the building was starting to collapse around them.

Sure enough, when he turned his head in the direction in which he came from, the roof above the section further down the aisle was collapsing at the seems, a trail of crumbling cement gently flowing down onto the floor below and blanketing the carpet with the finely crushed dust particles.

Panicked by the thought that he might die in his dream, Hoseok turned desperately toward Jimin, hand impulsively reaching out toward his still swaying foot.

"What do we do, Jimin?!" he shouted, adrenaline pumping through his veins and causing him to get more worked up than before.

Jimin chuckled softly and bent forward to meet Hoseok's hand, fingers gently untangling Hoseok's from his slacks. He sent a soft smile toward Hoseok when the office worker could only stare at him in mild irritation. (They were going to die, and this angel dude dared to laugh?!)

"Relax, Hoseok," Jimin cooed, slipping his hand out of Hoseok's hold. "This is just a realm I created for me to talk with you."

He huffed haughtily as he gave the rapidly collapsing roof a disdain glare. "But I guess Jungkook-ah couldn't handle me getting a hold of another one of his 'clients,' so we're gonna have to cut this a bit short."

Hoseok, bewildered, muttered, "Jungkook is doing this? He's invading my dream as you did?"

Jimin laughed heartily at the meek tone in Hoseok's voice and merely ruffled his dust particle covered hair when the office worker squinted his eyes at him. "Oh yeah, he does this all the time after I happened to steal away a rather special client of his."

Hoseok wanted to question Jimin about his relationship with the demon further, but the angel placed a small, veiny finger against his lips, successfully silencing the puzzled office worker.

"Now that we're short on time, I have to say my message to you quickly."

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, and exhaled, opening his eyes, and startling Hoseok from the sudden revelation of bright, icy blue pupils. "Jung Hoseok, I am your guardian angel, Park Jimin. I was sent here from the Heavens after receiving a distress signal from your apartment roughly five and a half hours ago."

Damn, have I been asleep that long? Hoseok thought hazily, the thunderous sound of the crumbling building soon becoming nothing but quiet white noise.

"It has come to my attention that that signal was not a drill and was a predicament I would have liked to have avoided. I am sorry for not coming sooner."

Jimin gave a side-eye glare to the approaching rubble of cement before continuing: "I would like to propose to you an offer of utmost importance. Please listen carefully."

Hoseok nodded and stared at Jimin dreamily, eyelids lowering as the cement neared them.

Jimin reached his hands up to Hoseok's face and framed them around his full cheeks, eyes boring into his. "Do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to trust this demon. Do not fall for his tricks--they will get you sent into the Underworld. As long as you fight against his temptations, I shall stay by your side and protect you."

His cold stare melted into a soft gaze as he murmured, "I don't want to see a good guy like you end up down there," before the final bits of the roof collapsed on top of them and crushed them whole.

A/N - Precious angel Park Jimin 💜