danger

16: chef

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"How is he doing?" The sound of Jimin's pained question made Minjun lift his face from Seokjin's chest drowsily. He watched Hoseok carry a small case towards the wounded boy and kneel beside him.

"He's fine," Hoseok said quietly. The medic began thoroughly treating Jimin's knife wound, the living room absorbing small whines and hissings from the younger's mouth.

Seokjin urged Minjun to look away, pressing his hand over the boy's eyes and stroking his thumb smoothly against his temple.

He retaliated, nudging his face away from the chef's hand and resting it back against his chest. While he was unfathomably concerned for the hurt gangster, the heaviness in his eyelids from the abundance of recent excitement allowed him to shut his eyes and unwind.

"Where'd Joon go?" Hoseok muttered, eyes fixated and concentrated on his patient.

"Writing a statement to the higher-ups about what happened, he'll likely be requesting body collection and clean-up too," Taehyung answered, arms tightening around Jungkook as the boy stirred in his evening nap.

The medic taped down the last strip of gauze and slid Jimin's arm into a sling before packing away, "I should go and wait by Yoongi for when he wakes up - and before you freak out - I put him under for surgery, he didn't faint."

Seokjin politely grinned and bid farewell to the busy man, soon stretching and making his way to his feet with the teenager in his arms.

"Come on kid," he said, "We should prepare dinner for everyone."

Minjun found himself being carried leisurely through the living room, clasping onto Seokjin's sweatshirt, "I- I don't, don't think I can help muh-much."

"That's alright-" Seokjin sat the light body down on one of the many kitchen counters- "I'll give you an easy job."

The chef opened a few cupboards and the fridge, surveying through the shelves which looked to be delightfully stocked. He dug his hands in, hunting around and eventually pulling out some ingredients.

"How are you with spicy food?" Seokjin asked, pausing to look at the somewhat lethargic boy, "we'll make kimchi jjigae."

"Fuh-Fine..."

"Excellent! Well then, my little sous-chef, all I need you to do is hand me the ingredients when I need them, okay?" Seokjin lightheartedly gambolled around, placing all of the foods beside Minjun in miniature jars and pots.

Seokjin wasted no time washing some white rice before ditching it in an electronic rice cooker, leaving it to ready itself while he prepared the main meal.

The chef then scraped a few more than a dozen strips of beef into a beige-coloured pot on top of the stove, grinning at Minjun with his palm out, "sesame oil, please."

Minjun was fairly good at his job, moving as quickly as possible with each order; garlic, oil, onion, gochujang, gochugaru, soy sauce, each of them was passed between the boys until Seokjin finally tipped boiling water into the pot and pressed a lid to it.

"Here-" Seokjin handed Minjun his phone with a timer on it- "tell me when it's been ten minutes."

And then, the chef wandered out.

To say the teenager was confused would have been an underestimation, sitting there with his captor's phone in his hand. He thought, certainly he knows what he's doing. His thumb hovered dangerously close to the home disk, musing the pros and cons of reaching someone for help.

Seokjin is a clever man, he fought internally, he wouldn't just hand his phone over without thinking...

He tapped it, the clock app noiselessly closing and the homepage opening up. His eyes widened, immediately double-tapping the home button and controlling himself from going back to the previous app.

"Come on," he whispered - his lip awkwardly captured beneath his teeth in a mental argument with himself.

I have no home, no family, no friends.

I'm going to get killed here one day.

If I just behave they won't-

Yoongi wouldn't hesitate.

Conflicted, Minjun decided to hold his breath and scramble with the device until he made it to the phone application. He panted, quickly glimpsing up to check the doorway for any interference and... stopped.

"It smells so nice in here," Jimin chirped, a brilliant smile overtaking his once distressed face as he strode into the kitchen. His eyes shut, his teeth fully on show as he grinned cheerfully at the teenager who held his elder's phone.

Frustrated yet starstruck by the happiness the hacker released, Minjun double-pressed the home button discreetly and took himself back to the clock app. The timer had reached 30 seconds by now.

"I-It's kimchi jjigae," Minjun said.

Jimin carefully clapped his hands together, "I love that! Just you wait, it's so funny watching Namjoonie's face go all red because of how spicy it is!" The gang member playfully sighed and rocked on his feet.

"U-uh J-Jimin..." Minjun stammered, catching the attention of the smiley elder, "Seok-Seokjin said to call him when it's been tuh-ten minutes." He turned the phone and presented the timer, Jimin instantly understanding and skipping out of the kitchen.

The teenager huffed and frowned, eyeing up the entrance with a sad glint in his dejected eyes. He knew that calling the police while Jimin stood in the room would have gotten him in trouble, but he still had a chance of being saved - yet, he pushed the thought aside and basked in the glee that the elder ran into the room with.

"Stupid." He laid the phone on the countertop beside his legs and waited for Seokjin the return to the kitchen. With every second, his fingers twitched and his stomach stirred, thinking; I could have called for help in this time. However, every time the boy intended to take the device, the dreaded fear that someone would walk in again attacked him.

"Ah-" Seokjin ran in speedily, "I didn't mean to take so long! Right, tofu..." the chef pulled a plate of the cubed ingredient out of the fridge and gleamed at Minjun before depositing it into the pot.

"Twenty more minutes and we can eat!" He turned the heat down to allow the bubbling stew to simmer before helping the teenager down from the counter. He grimaced, almost folding in on himself before the elder lifted him and chuckled at his forgetfulness.

"Let's set the table."