1 Death

"Damn," Park Ji-ho looked around herself in a daze and nodded. "I'm really dead."

Her corpse was lying face down on the pavement outside the building of her apartment. She hovered next to her dead body and tried entering it but it felt like an impenetrable solid wall of meat. A bullet hole at the back of her head was leaking blood onto her freshly shampoo and blow-dried hair.

"Ya... Park Ji-ho! Get up!" She whispered to the corpse. "You've left the oven on at home. Come on, Ji-ho, a bullet hole is just an inconvenience." It was around 11:30 pm and the street was empty but someone was bound to discover her dead body soon.

"Get- Wahhhh!!" Ji-ho fell backwards and let out a scream when her dead body blinked its eyes at her and smiled. The ghost hadn't gotten over her death and her corpse was already moving. It was an experience straight out of a horror movie.

"Hello."

The horrified young lady turned to stare open-mouthed at the tall man who was suddenly standing beside her corpse.

Stunning! gorgeous! handsome! out of his league! These were the words that immediately flashed across her mind. He looked a bit like a very famous actor she had seen a few years ago in a wildly popular drama.

"Ch- Cha Sung-min?!" She blurted out.

"No, I'm the grim reaper," he answered with a pleasant smile. His presence had chased away another malevolent spirit that had attempted to take over her body, but Ji-ho didn't know that.

Park Ji-ho doubted she was truly talking to the reaper. The grim reaper wasn't supposed to be so hot, wasn't supposed to look like Cha Sung-min. Even the expensive-looking black suit he wore was too fashionable and glamourous for the grim reaper. Wasn't he supposed to look like a skeleton wearing dirty black rags?

"Are you bullshitting me?"

"No," he answered patiently. "Miss Park Ji-ho, congratulations are in order. You've been selected to become a hard-working member of the prestigious Afterlife Facility."

"...."

The grim reaper waited for Ji-ho to comprehend what he had just told her. After a few seconds, the stunned ghost finally reacted.

"Ah- I get it," Ji-ho smiled ingratiatingly at the grim reaper. "Grim reaper nim, I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding."

Death remained silent, waiting to hear what else she had to say.

"It sometimes happens when paperwork gets mixed up at the office, an easy mistake to make. Everyone makes mistakes. I'm not blaming you, sir, not at all. But why don't you check it again? I'm sure I've got another seventy years at the very least before I pass on."

She sounded so convincing that even the grim reaper was tempted to check his paperwork just in case a mistake had been made.

"Okay," he replied. The man then pulled out a scroll from his suit pocket and unfurled it before Ji-ho. "Look, it says here that you die at the age of twenty-one. Death from a gunshot injury during a failed robbery attempt where you end up taking the bullet meant for someone else."

Ji-ho squeezed out a smile as she faced the pleasantly smiling grim reaper. "There are so many Park Ji-Ho-"

"It also says here that your father's name is Park Kang Dae," the man pointed to the scroll. "And that you have a birthmark on your right cheek, and it is shaped like a koala."

Ji-ho snatched the scroll out of the grim reaper's well-manicured hand. The cheek he was talking about wasn't the one on her face. "Who told you about my birthmark?!"

The grim reaper snapped his fingers and the scroll disappeared from Ji-ho's hands.

"If you don't wish to work for us, I can just send you into your next incarnation, miss Park. I can't guarantee you won't be born a koala if you pass up this chance."

Many koalas had chlamydia, an STD that infected 90 per cent of their population. Focus, she berated herself. It wasn't the time to be thinking about koala STD.

"Grim reaper nim..." she smiled at him again, "why don't you send me back into my body so I can sleep on the decision for a few days. Even the lowest paying entry job allows one day so the candidate can make a decision, yes?"

"Miss Park," the amused man shook his head at the stubborn spirit. "The longer you delay me, the more inclined I'll be to reincarnate you as a koala."

Ji-ho sighed in disappointment. Dying at twenty-one years of age while studying medicine, how pathetic was that? Her wealthy parents had wanted Ji-Ho to pursue a career in acting like her mother but the young lady had wanted to become a doctor. How could she pass away without fulfilling even a single one of her many dreams?

A few ghostly tears leaked from her eyes and she was quiet as the grim reaper gave her time to adjust to her new reality. After a minute of feeling sorry for herself, Park Ji-ho pulled it together because she wasn't a whiner and a quitter. She wasn't a winner either but that wasn't important.

"Mister reaper, I'm ready to go," she solemnly informed him. "But I have one request that I hope you'll fulfil before I leave this place."

The dying always had their dying wishes. Death had heard and seen them all. Saying their goodbyes to their loved ones, eating their favourite meals one last time, visiting their favourite places, and other sentimental variations on the same themes. The reaper expected something banal and of that sort from the young girl.

"What wish?" He asked her, already bored by the prospect of fulfilling another boring wish for an emotional ghost.

"Can you turn off the oven in my kitchen?