ethereal | park jimin | ✓

chapter 32 hide the butter knives

Jimin lounges on the couch as the afternoon sun passes by. Lazily, he stretched himself out and curled his tail into the air before relaxing his body. He rests his head on a pillow he stole from the bed. His eyes droop briefly but his ears perk at the sound of Eden's footsteps.

Eden is restless. She hasn't stopped moving since she returned home from her morning errands. Jimin hears her pacing around the apartment, checking the lock on the door, testing the latches on the windows, and setting butter knives in random places. Jimin isn't sure why the butter knives are out of their drawer and is more confused as to why he found one in the bathroom beside the toothpaste.

He wants to know why she's acting weird yet she is determined to keep everybody in the dark about the situation with the butter knives.

Ever since she came home from the grocery store, she started doing strange things. Jimin and Taehyung have asked repeatedly about what happened but she shrugs them off and reassures them that everything is "completely fine" and they don't need to worry about it.

After their failed attempts to get an answer out of Eden, they resorted to interrogating Jungkook—who they found was as clueless as the rest of them.

Jimin thought everything was fine before, so why is she acting like this now?

Eden walks out of the hallway with a bundle of blankets in her hands. She glances at the door as she passes by before disappearing into the kitchen.

Jimin sits up from the couch and watches her with growing concern. "Hey, are you really doing okay?" he asks once again.

"I told you that everything is fine!" Eden replies from the kitchen, her voice stable and calm.

Taehyung stumbles out of the hall with sleepy eyes. He winces as he rolls his shoulder and searches the living room before finding Jimin. He points weakly towards the kitchen, "She stole my blanket..." he whines.

"I told you that there is another one in the drawer!" she replies evenly.

Jimin frowns. "What are you doing with it?" He stands from the couch and crosses the room on light feet. He peeks into the kitchen and draws back in confusion. "Why on earth are you covering the window with a blanket?"

Eden freezes, mid-reach, and smiles guiltily over her shoulder. "It's too bright in here," she explains nonchalantly. "This blanket was dirty anyway."

She is extremely good at controlling her voice to appear calm. To the rest of the world, Eden would be described as "perfectly calm" and "rational" but it's all in the eyes.

She looks as if she had woken up from a nightmare and her mind still lingers in its memory.

Jimin feels hurt by her dismissive behavior and wonders if he did something wrong to lose her trust so quickly. For the last hour, Jimin has mentally run through everything he said to Eden that could have bothered her.

He knew the sleeping medicine was bad, but he thought they had settled that?

Is this about her parents? he wonders. They are arriving tomorrow but they aren't coming to the apartment. So why is she hiding the butter knives?

Taehyung heaves a sigh and trudges back into the bedroom, muttering that the blanket was warm.

Jimin lingers in the kitchen doorway and watches Eden tie the blanket to the curtain rod. His eyes soften as she stands up on her toes but is unable to reach them. He enters the room quietly and comes up along her side. He gently takes the blanket from her hands and hops up onto the counter. He offers her a smile before reaching over and tying the blanket to the curtain rod.