Jikook Oneshots

61. of mosquito nets (and zero regrets)

By: @CalicoChimmy

"Hello, Jimin-ssi, thank you for sitting down with us." The upper house had transformed from a busy hive of gaming and cooking into a quiet spot, now that they'd reached the end of their week here. The members were leaving first, and once they were gone, staff would come through and pack everything else up and clean up. Jimin was anxious to get this final step over with so he could get home, to the familiar — and unfamiliar.

"This is the exit interview, yeah?" Jimin asked, getting more comfortable in the seat he'd spent so many hours gaming on in the past week. He squirmed a little, the pain still making it a bit uncomfortable to sit for too long.

The man across from him nodded. "Yes, you know how this works. We'll ask a series of questions about your time here. Just answer as honestly as you can, in whatever way makes you most comfortable. If you don't want to answer a particular question, that's fine. Just let us know."

Jimin nodded in understanding. He'd been through this how many times before? He'd lost count. Actually, Jimin had always sort of enjoyed exit interviews — it gave him the opportunity to think back to what they'd done and how he felt about it. Sometimes in his day-to-day life things happened so quickly Jimin didn't get a chance to reflect at all. Photoshoots blended into practices blended into team meetings blended into recording sessions, without a moment in between to breathe.

This week in the forest had been all about self-reflection for Jimin. Actually, the best part of the past two years he'd spent a lot of time reflecting on his life, and the world, and his place in it, if he was being honest. Jimin had really opened his eyes, and his heart, to how his own outlook and expectations impacted how he viewed the things that happened to him — both in the past, and the present. Not only that, but he could clearly see how he might use those same principles to shape his future. This idea, this revelation, had literally changed his life — never more so than right now.

The questions the producers had put together were exactly what Jimin had expected. They always were — and while each member had an interview individually tailored to them, the questions still never varied that much. So when they asked Jimin what the most memorable part of the trip was, he was prepared for it — and he had decided to answer honestly. Mostly.

"The night of the fifth day going into the sixth day was the highlight for me," Jimin said, carefully thinking about how to phrase things without giving away too much. "The other night — I was so happy then, having a drink with the members — it was so great, and when everyone went back inside, Jungkookie and I played around all night. We drank more, played ping-pong, ran around — and yes, I broke Jungkook's mosquito net," he added with a laugh, "which I was running away from when I fell and got a bruise." When the production team looked less than convinced by his story, he stressed, "And that's what happened." He nodded in finality, just the hint of a smirk on his face.

Two days earlier

"Want another?" Jimin asked Seokjin, lifting his hyung's beer can and giving it a little shake, a tiny bit of liquid sloshing around at the bottom. Jimin added it to the empties he was already carrying and headed to the kitchen of the main house, placing them on the counter with the others they'd obliterated that night.

The other members had already headed to their respective bedrooms one by one, and it was only the three of them left now. The raucous laughter and animated discussions from earlier had given way to a pleasantly languid conversation, all of them mellowing out as they got drunker. From the kitchen, Jimin could hear Jungkook in the other room telling Seokjin yet another story that both Jimin and Seokjin had heard before — but that didn't make it less funny, especially when they'd drunk as much as they'd had that night.