VMIN / THE GUTTER

1

Park Jimin sees him arrive.

From his position atop his bright red chair, that looms over the wriggling people, he can see everything. He can see the small children as they struggle to keep afloat in the chlorine spiked water; he can see the parents buttering up cherub faces with sunscreen; he can see skin and bodies of all different shapes and shades, rosy with heat, all dipping themselves beneath the predatory heat of the sunshine. He sees everything, and, yet, what catches his eye every-time is Kim Taehyung.

Incongruous to the blooming bursts of radiant children, all with their bright swimsuits and flushed faces, Kim Taehyung is a veil of darkness, hunched over on one of the deckchairs, like a crow against the deep blue sky. All his skin is covered, in spite of how harsh the sunshine is, and he's bedecked in black from head to toe, with long strains of the fabric making him look as if a splotch of spilt ink against a previously whimsical painting. The only aspect of colour about him, is his electric blue hair, and even that is covered by an outrageously floppy black hat.

He doesn't belong here, in such a picture of joy, and it irks Jimin to no end.

Everything about Kim Taehyung irks Jimin.

In fact, if it weren't for the fact the boy was doing nothing but sit quietly, Jimin would try and find an excuse to kick him out. He'd certainly managed to do it on a number of occasions — because, for some reason, Taehyung was always here, specifically on Jimin's shifts — and Jimin grows a little unnerved by his constant, irritating presence.

Unknowingly staring at him through his round sunglasses, Jimin's flip-flop clad foot begins to shake against the air, and he doesn't realise the despicable expression he's making until he hears, "you could at least try to look like you're having fun." And Min Yoongi is there, looking up at him from his position on the ground.

Jimin always gets a strange flush of superiority when sitting upon his high lifeguard seat.

Yoongi stands with his pale skin drowned in an adorning uniform that matches Jimin's, dark hair falling into his slightly squinted eyes, as they look against Jimin's through the latter's sunglasses. Smoothing his face into something less hostile, Jimin says, "I'm not here to have fun." He pauses for only a small moment, before making a show of gesturing toward his badge and continues, "I'm here to guard lives."

And this, predictably, makes his coworker laugh, and Yoongi has such an attractive laugh, it garners the attention of a few girls from their class, all turning their cocking heads toward him, as if fluttering birds. Yoongi makes a point not to look back, but Jimin glances toward them, as the trio recline back on sun loungers, in their matching white bikinis, showing off their baking skin.

They giggle as Jimin's dark eyes pass over them.

"And I suppose guarding lives requires glaring at guests?" Yoongi's look is so pointed, so indicative of something unspoken, it irritates Jimin even more.

"He's just always here." He replies, and Yoongi briefly glances to the unmentioned subject of their conversation, who's curled into a ball upon his seat, face to his knees, so his wide-brimmed hat, conceals his identity somewhat. "I mean, I know he has no friends, but doesn't he have anything better to do than stalk me?" It tastes cruel, even as the words spill out, but Jimin's too headstrong to imagine regretting them.

Yoongi's look is of heavy judgement, as he replies coarsely, "you know he's babysitting, don't you?"

Jimin's brow raises.