Chapter Text
Minho stares at the body laying on the table in front of him. This is such a strange autopsy. In the years of doing this, he’s never seen someone in such a state. But he will remain professional while performing his job.
“Fuck sake, this guy got fucked up.”
Minho is used to pale, bloated faces. This one...the man’s lips are sewn shut and there is a strange marking across his chest. There’s no doubt that the man dabbled in the occult. But Minho can’t help but roll his eyes at this victim for believing in such a thing.
He does wish he could ask what happened exactly. Though he supposes that’s part of his job to find out. Was this a ritual gone wrong? Or right? Did he know some crazed person was going to do horrible things to his body? Minho hopes he wasn’t alive to feel the needle going through his lips.
He reaches for a small pair of shears and begins carefully removing the twine binding the man’s mouth shut. This is the first time Minho winces as he works. This poor soul.
The thread is slowly undone, Minho placing each dissolving piece into a small dish beside him. He wrenches the jaw open and begins searching for any clues inside his mouth. His teeth are clean, tongue looking normal for a dead person. There’s a sore inside his cheek but that could be from anything.
Minho switches to his scalpel, moving down to the chest area. He stares at the marks that he’s already taken several pictures of. He knows it’s not his job but he wants to research what the hell these mean. But he knows someone is already doing that for him. If he asks the right person, he could be able to get answers.
He doesn’t want to cut the marks but he needs to. A full autopsy is necessary in this case. But Minho flies back into an empty table when he makes the first cut. The man gasps and sits up. Minho stares with wide eyes, wondering if he’s fallen asleep at work. Because a body coming in here alive is simply impossible.
The scalpel drops to the floor when the man turns to look at him.
“Do you have some water?”
“What the fuck?” Minho blinks and leans closer. “What the fuck..”
“Um..I’m sorry. I’m really thirsty..”
“Fuck. Okay. Uh..okay, yeah. Water. You were fully dead one minute ago.”
“Sorta.”
“No. For certain.” Minho rushes forward as the man begins crawling off the table. “Whoa, wait. You’re naked.”
The man looks down at the cloth barely covering his lower body. “Oh. Could you get me my clothes?”
“They’re in evidence..”
“I’m not exactly ready for you to see me naked.”
Minho clears his throat and looks around the room. “Uh..hold on. I’ll see if I can get you scrubs.”
He slowly steps towards the door, staring at the man until he’s out of sight. Does he need to go home? Is he hallucinating? There is no possible way for someone to be alive on his table. Minho stops in his tracks. This is clearly a prank.
Why is he running to cover up someone who is fucking with him? He should walk as slowly as possible. This is already going to use one of his scrub credits. Or..maybe he can find a gown instead. Force the prankster to walk around with his ass hanging out, making him shift awkwardly to cover it.
He continues down the hall, turning the corner before pushing into the correct room. A nurse is inside, grabbing a warm blanket. Minho squeezes past him to grab a gown.
“What do you need that for?” His coworker asks with furrowed brows.
“Oh, there’s an alive guy in the morgue.”
“What!?”
“It’s a prank.” Minho rolls his eyes. “I’d be running if it was an actual patient.”
His coworker nods and Minho walks out. He wonders who set this prank up. And he wonders when they’ll reveal themselves. That way he can smack them. In Minho’s years of working in this field, he is used to many odd things happening to bodies. But none sit up and ask for water. And Minho wants to know which of his asshole coworkers came up with this.
He makes it back to the morgue, sighing as he pushes inside. Before he rounds the corner, he hears an odd noise. Something he’s never heard before. It sounds like snarling and cracking. It reminds him of a wild animal.
Minho cautiously steps forward, eyes flashing wide at the scene in front of him. The man is on the ground. He is gnawing on an arm that looks far too realistic. One of the fridge doors is open behind him and Minho can see the body inside missing a limb.
“Fuck..” Minho drops the gown as the man snaps his head up to him.
“Did you get me that water?”
“O-oh.” He forces a smile. “I forgot it..give me..give me a minute.”
Minho nearly trips on his feet as he rushes out of the room. Okay. This is really fucked up. Minho knows that was a real body in storage. But he doesn’t understand why anyone would be eating their limb.
He stands outside the room, grabbing his work phone from his pocket and making a call.
“Hey, um. I think Code Black? Morgue.” Minho can’t believe the words he is saying.
“Pardon me?” The security office responds.
“Code Black. Morgue. There is a man eating an arm.”
“Minho. What?”
“I’m serious.” He peeks through the window to make sure the man doesn’t attempt to leave. “He’s naked.”
“Is this a prank?”
“I don’t think so anymore.” He clears his throat. “He was dead five minutes ago.”
“Minho..I don’t have time for-”
“Don’t make me admit that I’m scared.”
He picks up the phone on the wall next to the door and dials the right number.
“Code Black. Morgue. Code Black. Morgue.”
“Alright, alright. We’re on our way.”
Minho hangs up and stares at the door. Okay. This is weird. It’s not a prank. It can’t be. There is a crazed man in the morgue who is eating someone who was supposed to be transferred to the funeral home tomorrow.
Minho doesn’t work tomorrow. That’s for Seungmin to figure out. As soon as Minho can leave, he is leaving. This day is far too weird.
He turns as the elevator opens, two security guards stepping into the hall. Minho points to the door but refuses to go inside behind the guards. They can deal with whatever the fuck is happening on their own.
They go in and Minho begins to pace around the door. He didn’t want to deal with a mess today. It was supposed to be a simple shift. He had one job and that body turned out to be alive and terrifying. All he needed to do was one autopsy and send his reports to the police. Then go home. Now he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.
He’s never dealt with a code. He never needed to. Is he supposed to do paperwork afterwards?
He looks up as the door opens but furrows his brows as the guards walk out without the patient. One steps over to him and rests a hand on his shoulder.
“Maybe you should go home and rest.” He says.
“What do you mean?” Minho shakes his head. “Did you not see him?”
“There’s no one in there. We checked every corner and the storage. No one.”
“That’s not possible. He is extremely noticeable.”
“If I were you, I’d call your boss to see if you can go home.”
---
Minho unlocks his front door with a sigh. What a fucking day. A weird one for sure. He’s never hallucinated at work before. His coworkers have told him they’ve seen ghosts but he doesn’t believe in that stuff. He knows once a person is dead, they are dead.
He kicks his shoes off and makes his way to the kitchen. His boss forced him to take tomorrow off but he promised he could at least use his valuable PTO so he’ll be paid. Though, he can’t really complain. Now he’ll have a three days weekend.
He opens the fridge and pulls out an egg from the carton and the last bit of kimchi he has. His feet drag across the floor to his rice maker. This is a very boring meal but he is far too tired to put effort into his dinner. And once he set up the rice cooker, he has to convince himself to actually fry an egg. But he really wants an egg.
A yawn echoes through the room. He sets his pan on the stove, searching for the egg. It’s not beside him anymore. Weird. He swore he set it on the counter.
Okay. He knows he’s tired but not this tired. He needs to find this egg. There can not be a lost egg in his kitchen. But he absolutely can not find it. So, for some reason, he begins searching the rest of the apartment.
Obviously, the egg isn’t going to be anywhere else. It probably fell between the oven and the counter. Nonetheless, he begins scanning the living room. But it isn’t there. Alright. He guesses he’ll check somewhere else. This feels absurd.
But it feels even more absurd when he finds the egg sitting neatly in his bathroom sink. Okay. That makes zero sense actually. He swears he didn’t go into the bathroom since getting home. Also..there is no chance he’s using an egg he found in the bathroom now. He hates food waste. But the thought of a bathroom egg sounds disgusting.
He walks back to the kitchen, wondering if he should just eat some plain rice and kimchi instead. But damn it. He wants to eat an egg.
He throws the egg into his food waste bag and opens the fridge. And now he’s certain he might have lost his mind. The entire carton is full. He is very very sure he just threw an egg away.
His body jolts into the air as something falls onto the floor behind him. And all sense of hunger leaves him when he turns to see a cracked egg, splattered across the linoleum. A gasp rips from his throat as the rice cooker beeps.
“Fuck.” He catches his breath, pressing a hand to his chest.
Yeah. He’s fine with plain rice for dinner.
And maybe a beer.
Once he’s settled onto the couch with his sad meal, he feels a bit better. He can relax for the rest of the night. The only thing he needs to do before bed is shower. And that’s only if he feels like doing it. Which he does. He handles dead bodies for a living. He needs to shower daily.
The show he’s watching starts to sound like gibberish the longer he watches, telling him it’s time to get some sleep. So, he’s going to take the fastest shower of his life.
He doesn’t bother taking his dishes to the kitchen. It’ll be fine. He’ll clean up tomorrow. No one is here to judge him.
But once he steps into the hallway, he hears something clatter across the floor. He sighs before checking to see what the hell that was. And he really thinks about going to the doctor tomorrow when he sees his empty bowl and spoon tossed from the table.
“Seriously?” He whispers under his breath.
He drags his feet back into the living room, picking up the items and walking to the kitchen with a groan. Is this place haunted now? Did he finally get a cat and forget about it? This day is fucking weird and cursed.
He’s going to sleep.
---
Minho sits up and rubs his face. He had his first nightmare in years. It was so odd. But one part..Minho remembers well. The man from work was there, being an absolute menace. At least Minho doesn’t have to deal with him again.
If he even existed in the first place.
He tosses the blanket the side and forces himself out of bed. If he had the energy, he would go to the doctor. But he’s certain he’ll be told it’s just stress. So, he’ll take these next three days to do absolutely fuck all.
The air is extra cold this morning. The one thing Minho hates about living in such an old building is all the cold seeps through no matter how high the heat is.
He tucks his feet into a soft pair of slippers and drags himself out to the hallway. The only thing on his mind right now is getting a cup of coffee. If he actually has eggs in his fridge today, he’s going to boil a few for breakfast.
He yawns once he gets the kitchen but he freezes. Something is different in here. His eyes make contact with the counter beside the sink. Why are his dishes done? He knows for a fact that he left those for today.
How did this happen? Did he sleep walk and somehow clean up his kitchen? He doesn’t sleep walk.
Whatever. Things have been weird lately.
He opens the fridge and grabs an egg. But his body jolts in the air, sending the egg up before faltering down the floor when he hears a loud groan from behind him. He spins around, expecting no one to be there.
Instead, he is staring at a figure standing in his kitchen. Not just any person. A man with holes in his face where twine used to bind his lips. A man with black eyes and dark veins. A man Minho saw spring to life twenty-four hours ago.
“You need to clean up after yourself more.” The man frowns, crossing his arms.
“What the fuck!?” Minho yells. “Why are you in my house!?”
“This is an apartment, actually.”
“That doesn’t matter. How the hell did you get in here?”
“Oh, I’m a demon. I just appear wherever I want now. Anyway, I’m hungry..can you make me some food?”
“What!? NO?? Get out of my kitchen!”
“Ugh. Fine..” The man turns and walks into the living room.
Minho watches him flop on the couch and grab his remote to turn his TV on. He rushes over, snatching the remote from his hand.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Minho glares.
“I was going to watch TV since I’m not allowed in the kitchen.” The man pouts.
“No? Get out??”
“Oh. No. I live here now.”
“No. You absolutely don’t.”
“I do.”
“No.”
“I’m Jisung, by the way.”
“For fuck sake..”
Minho turns around and walks back into the kitchen. He isn’t caffeinated enough for this shit. First off, he doesn’t even believe in demons. Then again, he watched that man spring to life yesterday and now he’s suddenly in his apartment. Maybe he forgot to lock his door that automatically locks. Yeah. Totally.
He brews a large pot of coffee while trying his best to ignore the stranger in his living room, failing miserably. There is a dead guy in his apartment. A dead guy who is actually alive. It makes zero sense. Minho is definitely going to check there isn’t a gas leak.
He makes the largest cup of coffee that he can before making his way back out to this not dead Jsung guy. Jisung sits on the couch, picking at the dirt under his fingernails that Minho didn’t have time to clean. But he smiles over once Minho sits next to him.
“Okay. Why are you here, again?” Minho asks, attempting to sip his coffee.
“Oh, you’re going to solve my murder!” Jisung beams at him.
“I don’t really..solve murders..” He blinks.
“Isn’t that part of your job?”
“I’m a medical examiner..I just cut people open and document my findings. Everything else is handled by people in labs and shit.”
“Well, now it’s your turn to solve it. I don’t make the rules.”
“And..who does exactly?”
“Dunno.” Jisung shrugs. “Maybe we can find that out.”
Minho sighs. He can not believe he is being thrown into a situation like this. Of course he can say no. Afterall, this entire thing sounds ridiculous. There isn’t a murder to solve. The man is alive. But he can’t pretend he isn’t interested in finding out what happened. Something odd happened and Minho wants to find out what.
“Are you into the occult?” Minho asks, knowing nothing fantastical actually happened.
“Just the normal amount.”
“None is the normal amount.”
“A little above average, then. I’ve read a few books and thought it was cool. A few days before this all happened, I went on some retreat to figure myself out. But I left pretty much immediately. It was..weird.”
“How so?” He really can’t believe he’s still asking question. He can’t believe he wants to figure this case out.
“Uh..well, they wanted everyone to hand over their phones because we weren’t allowed to contact anyone outside of the resort. I’d be fine if they said leave it in our rooms or something but that made me feel really unsafe. When I refused, I was brought to a room for a coaching. That’s when I learned it was actually a religious retreat and I figured..you know, I’m gay so I figured it was best to bail.”
“Wait.” Minho hops up and runs down the hall. After a minute, he returns with his laptop in hand. He flops back down and opens it. “Okay. Tell me the name of this retreat thing.”
“I doubt it was them that did this to me.”
“We never know.”
Jisung looks down as his stomach growls. “Can I tell you after breakfast?”
“I thought you were a ghost thing.”
“Demon. Not a ghost.”
“Right. Okay. I guess I can make something.”
---
Minho stares in awe as Jisung finishes his third plate of food, showing no signs of being full. It’s terrifying. Disgusting. But he’s incredibly impressed.
He doesn’t actually believe Jisung is a demon. He probably needs a psych evaluation after going through trauma. Obviously, he can’t be okay mentally after being forced into a ritual sacrifice and then waking up in a morgue.
But he’s still going to figure out what really happened. Honestly, he should report to the police that Jisung is alive again. That’s the smart thing to do. The cops will probably end up contacting him anyway.
“Don’t tell the police.” Jisung pushes the empty plate to the side. “Can I have one more plate?”
“I don’t have any more food left. I was supposed to go grocery shopping today.” Minho blinks. “Wait. How did you know I was thinking about telling the police?”
“Read your mind. Anyway, let’s go grocery shopping then.”
“No. Hold on. You can’t just say you read my mind and sweep past that. That’s bullshit. People can’t read minds.”
“I’m not a people anymore.”
“What am I thinking right now?”
“You think I’ve lost my mind. You also think you’re losing yours. Also thanks for thinking I looked pretty earlier.”
“Yah! Okay. Fine. Sure. You can read minds.”
“Just yours. We’re linked somehow.”
Minho rubs his face. He does not believe any of this. He’s going to the doctor as soon as he gets groceries. “You can’t just drop that lore without an explanation.”
“Dude, I don’t know. I barely remember what happened when I was dead. Just some voice telling me I’ll be sent to the one I’m linked to and they will guide me in the right path of justice.”
“That sounds too religious for me.”
“I mean..what other explanation do you have?”
“When the brain is dying, it releases chemicals that make you hallucinate. It makes the process..I guess more peaceful. Some people who have near death experiences say it feels like a really vivid dream.”
“Did you go to medical school?”
Minho glares. “Obviously.”
“Oh, right. Uh..so was I the worst death you’ve seen?”
“Not even close. The bike accidents where people don’t wear helmets are always scarring. But I think the worst was the homicide of a four year old.”
“I don’t think I can stomach the details of that without puking and getting angry.”
“We all had a tough time with it. Several people quit from different departments after the case closed.” Minho shakes the images out of his head. “Why don’t you want me to tell the police you’re alive?”
“I don’t know. Something in my gut is telling me they aren’t going to help.”
“I think your gut is experiencing indigestion.”
---
Minho walks into his office, Jisung trailing behind. He isn’t working yet but he wants to see if Jisung’s report is still in his file cabinet. There isn’t much information but anything can help.
Jisung is hovering over his shoulder, making him anxious. He hates when people hover. The majority of the time, he works alone. His two coworkers prefer to work together but Minho prefers the silence. So to have someone watching him so closely makes him nervous.
“My surname is Han.” Jisung points.
“I know.” Minho glares. “But the file isn’t here.”
“Where would it be?”
“I don’t know. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Do you think the police took it?”
“No. They only get reports through the portal. The only way it was moved is if someone here took it.”
But Minho still has a few more places in the office he can look before he checks the other rooms. Just as he opens a drawer in his desk, the door cracks open. His brows furrow. No one should be coming into his office at all without his permission.
He stares as his coworker steps inside before freezing.
“Oh, uh, hey.” His coworker, Chan, clears his throat. “What are you doing here? I thought you were on vacation.”
“I am. What are you doing here?” Minho asks.
“I..came to steal some paperclips.”
Minho reaches to a box on his desk, handing it over. “Hey, do you know where the Han Jisung file went?”
“No. Don’t think so.”
“He’s lying.” Jisung narrows his eyes.
Minho looks over at Jisung and frowns. “How do you know?”
“You okay?” Chan fidgets with the box. “Are you on the phone?”
“No?” He answers before he realizes that Chan can’t see Jisung standing beside him. “Sorry, yeah. I have a headphone in. Listening to some podcast.”
“Oh. Thought you were losing your mind or something.” Chan laughs. “Anyway, try not to get caught working by Hyunjin. Pretty sure that ends your PTO.”
“Yeah, if he sees me, I’ll tell him I’m just grabbing my phone charger or something.”
“Good call.”
With that, Chan leaves. Minho instantly snaps his head back over to Jisung. It would have been great to know only Minho can see him. Then he wouldn’t have embarrassed himself. Which also means Seungmin didn’t see Jisung acting like an animal.
“Why do you think he was lying?” Minho asks, standing when he realizes the report is absolutely not here.
“He avoided eye contact when he answered and his cheeks started to turn red.” Jisung responds. “Also, he’s my ex so I know his tells.”
“Why’d you break up?”
“I died.”
“Ah.”
“But before you think anything, no, I don’t believe he had anything to do with my murder.”
“Then why would he lie?”
“Maybe he moved it and lost it? He absolutely hated that I was into occult stuff because he thought it was dangerous.”
“How so? He never seemed like the type to believe in that stuff.”
“It was more..the people I was hanging out with. He thought they’d...you know, do something to me.”
“Well..can’t blame him now..”
---
“Can I ask, are you a virgin?” Minho looks up from his laptop.
“I think you should take me out for dinner before asking me such a personal question.” Jisung responds with a smirk.
“Shut up.”
“No. I’m not a virgin. Why?”
“That rules out virgin sacrifice.”
“Ah, right. No, yeah, I am far from a virgin.”
“Also..do you remember who you hung out with when doing all the occult shit?”
“Not really. I remember people were there but I can’t make out any faces in my memory.”
Minho didn’t think this would be so difficult. Of course, all he really has to go on in Jisung’s account. And his body. He only briefly read the police report when Jisung was first brought in. He can’t really go off of where Jisung was found. He was killed in his apartment. And Minho is sure the scene has been disturbed by now.
Maybe..
Maybe he can go and see for himself.
Fuck. What has he gotten himself into?
“Hey, I made another egg disappear to fuck with you but forgot where I put it. So, good luck with that.”
God, this is far more than he bargained for.